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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



MANUAL TRAINING 



FIRST LESSONS 



IN 



WOOD -WORKING 



V 

ALFRED G. COMPTON 



PROFESSOR OF APPLIED MATHEMATICS IN THE COLLEGE OF THE CITY 

OF NEW YORK, INSTRUCTOR IN CHARGE OF THE WORKSHOPS 

OF THE COLLEGE, AND AUTHOR OF A MANUAL OF 

LOGARITHMIC COMPUTATION 



lC* 






■>- 




IVISON, BLAKEMAN, AND COMPANY 
publishers 

NEW YORK AND CHICAGO 






,01 



Copyright, 

1888, 

By IVISON, BLAKEMAN & CO. 



f- ?/y^ 



PRESS OF HENRY H. CLARK & CO., BOSTON. 



PREFACE. 



The series of lessons in wood-working here pre- 
sented is intended, principally, for use in schools in 
which hand-work is pursued as a part of general 
training. The order of sequence is designed to lead 
the pupil from one tool to another of larger capabil- 
ities, and from one operation to another requiring a 
higher degree of skill. 

In writing the descriptions of operations the aim 
has been to make them so full as to enable an intel- 
ligent pupil to perform the operations tolerably well, 
even without the help of an instructor, and at the 
same time to direct the attention of the instructor 
to the principal points that he ought to insist on, 
and the principal errors that are found to occur. 
The work being designed for young pupils, say 
between the ages of eleven and fourteen, it is not 
intended to go over much ground, nor to impart 
great skill, but only to open the way, reserving for 
another volume a more extended course. For the 
same reason, a thorough analysis of the mode of 
action of each tool is not attempted : this belongs 
rather to the teaching in a technical school, and 



iv Preface. 



should have its place in a more advanced work for 
higher classes. Nevertheless, it is intended, not 
merely to teach the pupil how to handle the tool, 
but also to form in him the habit of considering 
how the tool operates, and what modifications it 
requires to adapt it to different uses, affording thus 
training not only for the hand and the eye, but for 
the attention and judgment as well, — an end to 
which hand-work, properly conducted, is at least as 
well adapted as many of the other studies that have 
heretofore monopolized the attention of our schools. 

With the exercises in the use of tools have been 
interwoven observations on the properties of the ma- 
terials used, and elementary principles of mechanical 
drawing, with the idea that the three studies, thus 
blended together, would lend help and stimulus to 
each other, and thus be pursued with more zest than 
if taught separately. 

The division into lessons is necessarily, to some ex- 
tent, arbitrary. The lessons may be found too long 
or too short, according to the time which the school 
may be able to allow. An intelligent instructor will 
easily combine them or subdivide them as occasion 
may require. 

I am indebted to Messrs. Fairbanks & Co. for the 
design for a small testing-machine, Fig. 8, and to 
my colleague, Professor William Stratford, for the 
micro-photograph of a section of the wood of Pinus 
SylvestriSf Fig. 6. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 







PAGE 


Preface 




iii 


Materials and tools needed .... 


vii 


Lesson 






I. 


Cutting tools — knife and hatchet ; cross- 






cutting 


1 


II. 


Knife and hatchet continued; splitting 






whittling, and hewing 


8 


III. 


Strength of wood 


14 


IV. 


The Cross-cut-saw 


21 


V. 


Shrinking, cracking and warping of timber 


28 


VI. 


Working-sketches 


32 


VII. 


Working-drawings 


38 


VIII. 


Making a nailed box ; laying out the work 


44 


IX. 


Hammer and nails ; putting a box to- 






gether 


49 


X. 


The same, continued; taking apart 


54 


XI. 


The Jack-plane 


58 


XII. 


The Smoothing-plane .... 


68 


XIII. 


Back-saw and bench-dog .... 


78 


XIV. 


The Chisel ; paring and chamfering j char- 





acters of different woods . . .85 



vi Contents. 



PAGE 

XV. The Chisel, continued; through mortise; 

brace and bit 99 

XVI. The Chisel, continued; end dove-tail . Ill 
XVII. Dove-tailed box ; laying out the work ; 

cutting the dove-tails . . .119 
XVIII. Gluing; hand-screws; putting the box to- 
gether 128 

XIX. Finishing a dove-tailed box; planing end- 
wood 136 

XX. Fitting hinges 140 

XXI. Making a paneled door ; isometric drawing 146 
XXII. Paneled door, continued ; mortise . . 160 

XXIII. Fitting a panel ; the plow . . . 167 

XXIV. Chamfering a frame ; finishing with sand- 

paper and shellac . . . .172 
Alphabetical Index 183 



Tools and Materials required for the Course of 
Lessons in Wood-Working. 

I. — TOOLS, ONE FOR EACH PUPIL. 

Pocket-knife, two blades. 

Lead pencil, No. 2. 

Marking-gauge. 

Cross-cut-saw, 22 inches long, 8 teeth to the inch. 

Rip-saw, 22 " 4* 

Tenon-saw, 14 " 12 " " 

Dove-tail-saw, 8 " 15 " " 

Try square, steel blade, 6 inches long. 

Hammer, weight 1 lb., handled. 

Mallet, " 1 lb., handled. 

Two-foot folding rule, metric and English on opposite 

sides. 
Jack-plane, double-ironed. 
Smoothing-plane, double-ironed. 
Firmer chisel, one inch, pear-tree handle, 
half-inch 
" " quarter-inch " 

II. — TOOLS, ONE FOR EACH BENCH (TWO PUPILS). 

Double bench, with closets. 
Bevel, blade 12 inches long. 



viii Manual Training. 

Oil-stone, in box. 

Oil-can, filled. 

Bench-dog, 6 inches by 12. 

Brace. 

Center-bit, i inch. 

Screw-driver, £ inch. 

Brad-awls, }" and -£%". 

III. — TOOLS FOR EACH CLASS. 

One chopping-block, 12 to 15 inches in diameter, 20 inches 

high. 
One dozen straight-edges, i" x 2" — 24", pine. 
Three glue-pots, 1 quart. 
Three glue-brushes. 
Two dozen hand-screws, 14 inches. 

a a a « q u 

Twenty pounds glue. 
Can of sperm-oil, 1 gallon. 

" white shellac varnish, 1 gallon. 
One fore-plane. 
Three plows, with bits. 
One draw-knife. 

IV. — MATERIALS FOR EACH PUPIL. 

Lesson I. — Stick of white pine, £" square, 10" long. 

Stick of pine or hemlock fire-wood, 2 feet long, 2 inches 

thick. 

Lesson II. — Two pieces of pine, each i" X 2" — 6", one 

straight-grained the other crooked. 

Piece of pine or hemlock fire- wood, six or eight inches 



Tools and Materials. ix 

long, about three inches square, with square ends, 
without knots. 

Lesson III. — Two strips of pine, i" x £" — 3", one cut 
length-ways of the grain, the other cross-ways. 

Lesson IV. — Piece of mill-dressed pine, 1" x 4"— 12", 
to try tools on. 
Piece of straight-grained clear pine, f " X 6" — 4' 6', mill- 
dressed, cut from the end of the board, showing the 
rough end and the cracks or checks. 

Lesson V. — Half dozen b inch dowels, about 4 inches 
long, with a piece of maple, cherry, or other hard- 
wood, 1" X 3" — 8", bored with holes of the same 
size as the dowel. 

Lesson IX. — Two dozen four-penny nails. 

Lesson XI. — Piece of clear pine, about f"x6"— 12", 
for practice with plane. 

Lesson XIII. — Clear pine board, |"x8"-26" J for top 
and bottom of box. 

Lesson XIV. — Pine plank, lb" thick, not very straight- 
grained, to be cut to lengths of 9", and split to width 
of 1£", and similar plank of white-wood, furnishing 
one stick of one kind, lb" X 1 b"~ 9" to each pupil. 

Lesson XV. — Two pieces of clear pine, 4 cm - x5 cm - — 15 cm - 

Lesson XVI. — Two pieces of clear white-wood, lb" x 
2" -8". 

Lesson XX. — 1 pair brass hinges, b" X 1£", with screws. 
1 brass hook, 1", with staple or screw-eye. 

Lesson XXI. — Clear pine or white-wood plank, 1£" X 
12"- 3' 6" for frame. 
Ditto b" X lib" ~ 16£" for panel. 



Manual Training. 



Lesson XXI V. — Half sheet sand-paper, number 0. 

V. — MATERIALS OF ILLUSTRATION FOR EACH CLASS. 

Specimen of fiber of hemp and flax for Lesson III., p. 14. 
Piece of round pine or spruce, about six inches long, with 

bark on, for Lesson III., p. 16. 
Small testing-machine (desirable but not indispensable) 

for Lesson III., p. 18. 
Piece or pieces of round timber, about 10 or 12 inches in 

diameter and 2 feet long, stripped of bark, showing 

character and direction of cracks (or checks) for 

Lesson V., p. 31. 
Similar pieces cut into boards, which are numbered and 

tied together, slabs included, in their proper places, 

for same. 
Block of walnut 5" xSi" — 9", with hole in one end as 

in description, p. 34, 35. 
Nailed box, 9£" X 8"- 12", as figured on p. 38. 



Lesson I. 
Cutting Tools. — Knife and Hatchet. 

EVERY cutting tool is a wedge, which is 
pressed or driven between the particles of 
the wood, pushing them apart as it advances. 
You have a stick of white pine half an inch 
square and about ten inches long. Lay it 
down on your bench, holding it in your left 
hand, and try to cut it across with your knife, 
about an inch from the end. Pressing down 
on the knife pretty hard, you force the blade 
in a short distance, pushing the wood right 
and left, and making a small notch. You soon 
find, however, that you cannot force the knife 
forward any farther ; the sides exercise i. 
of the notch resist the advance Cross _ cutti 
of the knife, and stop it when with knife, 
you have pushed it in perhaps an eighth of 
an inch. If you could remove the wood that 
presses against the sides of the knife-blade you 
might be able to drive it farther forward and 



Manual Training. 



cut deeper. You can do this if you proceed 
a little differently. Begin again on the op- 
posite face of the stick, at the same distance 
from the end ; but this time, instead of press- 
ing squarely against the side of the piece, press 
obliquely in the direction of the line db, Fig. 1.* 

The knife moves 
forward more 
easily, because it 



\ 



lifts up the fibers 
F% S^*' \ on one side and 

Ob o 

pushes them 
away, bending them as in the figure. Even 
now, however, the wood ceases to yield after 
a while, and the blade advances no farther. 
If you now place your knife just to the right 
of the former cut and cut down towards the 

left, in the direction s/ _^ 

of the line c d, you ¥ j 

will cut off the ends . 

of the fibers that are " 

bent up, and leave a notch, as in Fig. 2. 

* The crooked lines at the end of the drawing in Figs. 1, 2, 3 
mean that the portion of the object to the left of such lines 
is left out as unnecessary. Similar lines are shown in Figs. 
32, 45, and others. 



Wood - Working. 



Next place the knife a little to the left of 
the notch, and cut in the same direction 
as at first. You will turn up another chip, 
as in Fig. 3. You easily cut off this chip 

by cutting in the 

second direction (c 3- 



d, Fig. 1), and can ; , ; 

even, at the same 

time, by making this cut a little to the 
right, widen and deepen the notch. Repeat- 
ing these operations, you may cut half-way 
through the stick. 

In this exercise, as in every other opera- 
tion with cutting tools, make it an invariable 
rule, never to cut towards your own hand. 
Then if your tool slips it may perhaps cut 
your bench, but it cannot cut you. Further- 
more, it may be observed here, that in mov- 
ing about the shop, you should never carry 
any cutting tool in your hand, unless it is 
absolutely necessary to do so. In such cases 
it must be carried with extreme care, so as 
not to wound yourself or any one else. Strict 
attention to these rules is absolutely necessary. 

You have now cut half-way through your 



Manual Training. 



stick. Beginning on the other side, yon may 
now make another cut to meet the first one, 
thus cutting the stick quite in two. Having 
done this once, you may cut off another 
piece an inch long, this time paying particu- 
lar attention to the following principle. The 
knife, or any other tool for cutting wood, 
works best when, instead of pushing directly 
down on the tool, you at the same time 
draw it along. This is more important the 
softer the material is, and is well illustrated in 
cutting or carving meat, where, if we press on 
the knife without drawing it along we only 
bend the fibers instead of cutting them. You 
will therefore this time, as always hereafter, 
in using a knife or other cutting tool, par- 
ticularly on soft wood, try to give it a slid- 
ing motion along with the pressure. Bearing 
this in mind, try now to cut off the second 
inch of your stick clean and smooth. 

After this, cut off a third piece, working 
this time with the stick firmly held in the 
left hand instead of resting on the bench. 
Holding the stick thus you will have a better 
command of the knife, and will more readily 



Wood - Working. 



give it the proper sliding motion ; but, unless 
you are very careful you will run some risk 
of cutting yourself in making the second or 
backward cut. If you do not feel safe in 
making this cut, you may again rest the stick 
on the bench. To vary the exercise, you may 
cut the stick from all the four sides succes- 
sively, leaving it nicely pointed in the form 
of a square pyramid. 

After every exercise try to judge the quality 
of your work. In this last, for instance, see 
whether all four of the faces of the pyramid 
are perfectly smooth and alike, whether they 
meet exactly in a point, and whether the 
edges are straight and sharp. 

If the piece of wood to be cut were three 
or four inches thick instead of half an inch, 
it might be cut off in exactly the same way 
with the hatchet or ax, which is only a short, 
heavy knife driven forward by blows instead 
of pressure, and without the sliding motion 
just described. With the hatchet or ax, just 
as with the knife, a blow square across the 
fibers will make the tool penetrate but a short 
distance, and to make it cut to any consider- 



Manual Training. 



able depth the blows must be directed right 
and left alternately, gradually widening the 
cut, exactly as in the exercise with the knife, 
leaving the piece beveled or obliquely cut 
on the end. This is exactly the kind of cut 
that the woodman makes with his heavy ax 
in felling a tree, and afterwards in cutting it 
up into logs. You may try it with a light 
hatchet on a stick of pine or hemlock fire- 
wood, two or three feet long and about two 
inches thick. Lay it on the chopping-block, 
holding the end in the left hand. First strike 
Exercise 2. a square blow with the hatchet, ob- 

cros^Ttins serving how little it penetrates. 

with hatchet. Next strike obliquely, right and 
left alternately. Be very careful not to strike 
very hard, nor to let the hatchet glance, lest you 
cut yourself. When you have cut about half 
through you may turn the stick over and cut 
from the other side ; but if you do this you 
must work rather carefully when you have 
nearly cut through, for if the last stroke, which 
cuts through, should be delivered too squarely, 
or with too much force, the end piece would 
iiy up, and might strike you in the face. 



Wood - Working. 



You have now learned that such cutting tools 
as the knife and the hatchet are not adapted for 
cutting square across the grain of wood, though 
they cut very well obliquely. We shall learn 
by and by what instrument to use when it is 
necessary to cut square across the grain. 



Lesson II. 

Knife and Hatchet Continued. 

THE knife, the hatchet, and similar tools 
are used for other purposes besides cross- 
cutting or chopping: they are used for 
splitting and for hewing or paring. 

You have two pieces of pine | of an inch 

thick, 2 inches wide, and about 6 inches long, 

marked A and B. Try to split from one edge 

a piece half an inch wide. The pieces have 

been selected by inspecting the grain of the 

wood, so that in one case this task shall be 

easy, and in the other case impossible. Take 

exeroise 3. the piece marked A. Set it up 

splitting with endwise on your bench. Place 

knife. your knife on the end, about an 

inch from the edge, and press down hard 

with the right hand. You find that the 

knife runs out, cutting off too narrow a piece, 

or runs in, cutting too wide a piece. Take 

the piece marked B and try the same experi- 

8 



Wood - Working. 



ment, and you find no difficulty in splitting 
off the piece required. Now, looking at the 
sides of the pieces, you find that your knife 
in both cases followed the grain of the wood, 
indicated by lines that you see on the face if 
you examine with care. Your experience, 
then, shows you that when you wish to split 
wood in a given direction you must pay 
attention to the grain, and when the grain is 
not favorable, if you wish to cut along a 
given line you will have to use some other 
method than that of splitting. We shall 
learn, in a few lessons, what this method is, 
and what tool must be used. 

As thin and soft wood is split with the 
knife, so heavier and harder wood may be 
split with the hatchet or the ax. Try the 
hatchet on a piece of fire-wood, about six or 
sight inches long, taking first a piece of soft 
wood, such as pine or hemlock, without 
knots, and with square ends, so exercise 4. 
that it will stand upright on the splitting with 
block without being held. At hatchet, 
first, to get control of the movement of the 
hatchet, you may strike a light blow, caus- 



10 Manual Training. 

ing the hatchet to stick in the wood, and 
then, lifting hatchet and stick together, strike 
a harder blow, driving the hatchet through. 
Afterwards, but not till you are quite sure 
of your ability to strike just where you 
wish to, even when hitting hard, you may 
hold the piece steady with the left hand, 
snatching the hand away just as you strike 
with the right. This must be practiced with 
extreme care, and only by one pupil at a 
time, and under the eye of the instructor. 
Last of all, when you are quite sure of your 
stroke, you may venture to strike with the 
right hand while holding the piece with the 
left, but use a pretty large piece, and do not 
try to split off much at once. 

From short pieces and soft wood, such as 
you have just used, it requires only practice 
to enable you to work up gradually to longer 
pieces and harder wood, requiring stronger 
blows and heavier tools. 

Besides cutting across the grain and split- 
ting along the grain, we may cut along the 
grain instead of splitting, for the purpose of 
trimming the piece down to* a given mark. 



W >' -Working. 



11 



This operation performed od a small piece 
with a knife or a chisel, is called paring; on 

a larger scale, with the hatchet or ax it is 
hewing. Since, in this case, the cutting is 

lv in the direction of the grain, or nearly 
so, we have to be careful not to let the tool 
split the wood, so as to run inside of the pro- 

1 mark. 
Take the piece A again, which has now a 
crooked edge, and draw a straight line on the 
side of it with your lead-pencil, exercise 5. 
about half an inch from the for- Parinc or whit . 
mer edge. To prevent the wood Uin s with knife. 
from splitting within this mark, the first pre- 
caution to be taken is to cut in such a direc- 
tion that the knite. following the grain, will 
run outward rather than inward. Thus, if the 




Fig '.<*. 

grain runs as in Fig. 4. in which A B is the 

line to which the piece is to be pared down. 



12 



Manual Training. 



the part from A to 0, must be pared from left 
to right, and the part from to B from right 
to left. A second precaution that may be ob- 
served, particularly when much wood is to be 
removed, and when the grain is very irregular, 
or when it is difficult to see which way it runs, 
is to " score " the edge with several oblique 
cuts, as in Fig. 5, after which the pieces be- 




Fig. 5. 



tween these cuts can be cut off, working in 
the opposite direction, or from B to A. New 
scores are then made and new pieces split 
off. As soon as you begin to approach 
the line A B, special care must be taken to 
cut so that the knife shall run out rather 
than in. 

The operation of hewing, with hatchet or 
ax, is just the same as this. The stick must 
be turned with alternately one and the other 



Wood - Working. 1 3 



end up, according to the grain, and when 
much wood is to be taken off, it must be 
scored and split as in the last exercise. The 
operation may be tried on one exercise e. 
of the sticks of fire- wood used Hewing with 
in Exercise 2. Holding the stick hatchet, 
upright on the block with the left hand, turn 
one of the faces towards the right. Score 
obliquely into the more prominent parts, and 
then split them off. When the face has been 
made pretty nearly plane, smooth it off with 
light strokes of the hatchet, turning up now 
one end and now the other, so as to cut with 
the grain. Examine your work critically to 
see whether the face you have been working 
on is straight and smooth. 



Lesson III. 

Strength of Wood. 

WE have seen, in our previous exercises, 
that it is much easier to cut and split 
wood lengthwise than crosswise. We will now 
look into this matter more closely. 

If we examine with a microscope the struct- 
ure of the trunk of a tree, we find that the 
wood consists of fibers or threads running 
lengthwise of the trunk and adhering to each 
other more or less strongly. In many plants 
these fibers are longer and more easily sepa- 
rated than in trees, and they are used for 
twisting into ropes and into threads to be used 
in weaving. By examining specimens of hemp 
and of flax, you will learn something of 
the length and strength of such fibers. In 
some kinds of wood these fibers adhere so 
loosely that they can be separated by heat, 
moisture, and bruising. The fibers of bass- 
wood and some others are thus separated, to 

14 



Wood - Working. 



15. 



be used in making paper. Fig. 6 shows the 
appearance of the fibers of Scotch Fir, a species 
of Pine, under the microscope. Now, while 
these threads have singly considerable strength, 




Fig ; 6. 

and still more, of course, when a number of 
them are taken together, their adhesion to 
each other is not so great. On the next page 



16 



Manual T) 



-aining. 



is shown a round pine stick, six inches thick, 
with the bark on, just as it grows in the tree, 
and we will cut off some pieces to illustrate 
what has been said. The stick is cut square 
across at the ends, and you can see the rings 
which mark how much the trunk grows each 
year. First I cut off a cylindrical piece six 
inches long, Fig. 7. Next, from this, I split 
off with an ax or a draw-knife some pieces 
a quarter of an inch thick, beginning at the 
outside, and splitting wider and wider pieces, 




CL 



9 



Ft?. 7. 



h, . 



till I get one four or five inches wide, by 
splitting along the lines a b, a c. In the 
piece a b d c thus cut off you can see the 
edges of the layers of fibers of which the ends 



Wood - Working. 17 



were seen in the c}dindrical block, and, com- 
paring carefully the end of the thin board 
with the face, you see that these edges con- 
stitute the " grain " of the wood, and can also 
see why they are closer together near the edge 
of the board and farther apart near the mid- 
dle, or why the board is fine-grained near the 
edge and coarse-grained at the middle. 

I will now cut off from a b d c a strip a b f g, 
half an inch wide, with a fine saw. In this 
strip, which I will mark A, the grain runs 
crosswise. Next, with a knife or hatchet, I 
will split off another strip, f d h i t also half an 
inch wide, in which the grain runs lengthwise, 
and which I will mark B. Now taking the 
first piece by the ends and pulling it, I can 
break it in two ; but no pull that I can give 
is strong enough to break the other. (I am 
careful not to bend either of the sticks, be- 
cause I want to consider now only the ques- 
tion of breaking by a direct pull ; breaking by 
bending is something more complicated, and 
cannot be considered till later.) I hand you 
all now a number of such strips, of both 
kinds, and you readily satisfy yourselves that 



18 Manual Training. 

it is much easier to separate the fibers from 
each other than -to break them. 

After we have thus found out that wood is 
stronger lengthwise than crosswise, we may go 
a step further, and inquire how much stronger. 
We may put one of the pieces of each kind in 
a small " testing-machine/ ' and apply an in- 
creasing force to it till it breaks. With such 
a machine we find that the piece A is 
broken by a pull of 65 pounds, while it takes 
700 pounds to break B, and, as the two pieces 
are of the same size, we conclude that this 
kind of wood is about eleven times as strong 
lengthwise as it is crosswise. The operation 
of "testing," and the machine used for the 
purpose, are of the greatest importance. The 
architect and the engineer make use of power- 
ful machines, in which large bars and columns 
can be strained till they break, and the break- 
ing force measured. At the proper time you 
will find no difficulty in understanding these 
larger machines and operations, if you have 
understood the smaller ones. In the machine 
shown in Fig. 8, the piece to be broken is 
held by the clamps A and B. The wheel C 



Wood - Working. 



19 



being turned the screw D is drawn down, 
which raises the other end, E, of the lever, 
E F, and stretches the piece till it breaks. The 
index, G, on the spring-balance shows how 
great is the force applied at F; and the 




force applied at E is as many times greater 
than this as the length of H F is greater 
than that of E H. As the piece stretches 
before breaking, the pull is applied at first 
by means of the screw /, and afterwards by C. 



20 Manual Training. 

Our experiments with these pieces of wood 
agree with our observations on the action of 
cutting-tools. The knife and the hatchet, 
when cutting square across the fibers, pene- 
trate but a short distance, unless a very great 
force is applied, but when cutting between the 
fibers they are much more easily pressed for- 
ward. With such tools, therefore, we were 
obliged to cut lengthwise or obliquely, and 
found it nearly impossible to cut a thick piece 
square across. If we wish to do this we must 
use another tool. The tool specially designed 
for this work is the cross-cut-saw, which we 
will study in our next lesson. 



Lesson IV. 
The Cross-cut-saw. 

EXAMINE your saw carefully. You find 
that it consists of a number of triangular 
teeth, each of which acts as a sort of knife. 
Count the number of teeth to the inch. You 
will find this different in saws that are in- 
tended for different purposes. The one that 
you have is a " cross-cut" saw for moderately 
soft wood. If you now examine one of these 
teeth, you will find that it is pointed, and 
the front edge is sharp. It would be a use- 
ful exercise, and would help you to under- 
stand the mode of action of the saw, if you 
would cut out with your knife from a piece 
of thin wood (say | of an inch thick) a 
model of half a dozen teeth of each of your 
various saws as you become acquainted with 
them. When you push the saw across the 
grain, each of these teeth makes a cut across 

the fibers, just such as you can make by hold- 

21 



22 Manual Training. 

ing your knife upright and drawing it across 
the grain. Next, examining the successive 
teeth, you find the alternate ones sharpened in 
different ways. While one has its sharp edge 
towards the left, the next has its edge towards 
the right. Thus the two sets of teeth make 
two different cuts across the grain, and these 
cuts are at a distance apart equal to the 
thickness of the saw, or a little more, inas- 
much as the teeth are spread apart, or " set." 
All this you will easily make out if you study 
attentively the saw itself, and not merely this 
description. 

Now, try to make with your knife just such 
a cut across the grain as one of these teeth 
makes. You have a piece of waste wood 
which you will keep by you for this and sim- 
ilar experiments. Hold your knife upright on 
the piece and draw it along, across the grain. 
You find, as you have found before, that you 
cannot cut very deep, because the wood at the 
side of the knife is not removed, and thus the 
cut is not wide enough to let the knife enter; 
but with the saw it is different. When one 
knife or tooth has made its cut, the next 



Wood - Working. 23 



knife not only makes another cut very near 
and parallel to the first, but it also tears off 
the little piece of wood between the cuts. The 
third tooth, therefore, is able to cut a little 
deeper, and the fourth tooth tears off a little 
more, and so on. Thus the saw makes a clean 
cut with parallel sides, and wastes only a small 
amount of wood. 

We can now go on to the use of the cross- 
cut saw. On your bench is a piece of pine 
board about 4 feet 6 inches long, 6 inches wide, 
and f of an inch thick. (Hereafter we will in- 
dicate dimensions like this in the following 
way: 6"x|"-4' 6", which will be read, "Six 
inches by three-quarters of an inch, by four 
feet six inches)." The board is what is called 
" mill-dressed," that is, the roughness that is 
always found on boards that have been sawn 
from the log has been planed off by a planing- 
machine, leaving a tolerably smooth surface. 
The piece on your bench has been cut from 
the end of the board, and you will very likely 
observe that in the first place it is not square 
on the end, and in the next place that it is 
cracked or "checked" at the end. The first 



24 Manual Training. 

is owing to the fact that the log was cut with 
the ax, as already explained. In many cases 
the logs are cross-cut with a saw, and then the 
ends of the boards are square. The cracks or 
" checks" we will explain in our next lesson. 

Now lay the board on the bench, with the 
checked end to the right, and we will proceed 
to first mark it square, and then cut it square. 
For the first purpose we will use the try-square. 
Place the edge of the wooden part of the 
square against the edge of the board, letting 
the steel blade lie flat on the board and square 
across it. Then, using the edge of the blade 
as a ruler, draw a pencil-mark; this will run 
square across the board. You must be care- 
ful in drawing this line not to vary the in- 
clination of your pencil, or you will make a 
line which is not parallel to the edge of the 
square, and therefore not perpendicular to the 
edge of the board. Draw such a line just 
far enough from the imperfect end to leave 
out all the worst checks. We will then cut 
off with the saw the imperfect piece thus 
marked. 

There are several ways in which the board 



Wood - Working. 25 



may be held while we are making this cut. 
For this exercise you may hold it in the 
bench-vise. Observe how the vise exercise 7. 
works. Open it to the width of cross-cutting 
your board, lay the board in it, with saw - 
with the imperfect end to the left and the 
marked face up, and screw the vise up so as to 
hold the board firmly, the marked piece pro- 
jecting beyond the end of the bench. 

Take the saw in your right hand. (If you 
are left-handed you will do well, nevertheless, 
to learn to work with the right hand, or, 
better still, to work equally well with both 
hands. It is sometimes a great advantage to 
be able to use either hand ; and there are some 
things which can only be done with the right.) 
Set the saw to the left of the mark, just so 
far that when you cut you will cut exactly 
up to the mark, but not beyond it. Rest the 
fingers of the left hand on the wood outside 
of the mark, holding the thumb up for a 
guide to steady the saw. Draw the saw back- 
ward, letting it rest very lightly on the wood, 
till you have made sure that the cut will be 
in the right place; then push it forward, still 



26 Manual Training. 

bearing lightly on the wood. Having started 
the cut thus with a few gentle strokes, con- 
tinue it with long strokes, the full length of 
the saw. Avoid short, jerky strokes. Draw 
the saw back at each stroke till the hand 
nearly touches the shoulder, and push it for- 
ward till the handle nearly reaches the board. 
A long, steady stroke cuts smoother as well 
as faster, is a more agreeable movement, and 
affords a pleasant exercise. 

Be careful not to bear too hard on the saw; 
if you do, you will bend the saw, and it will 
make a crooked cut. While working, watch 
the saw, to see that you keep it perpendicular 
to the surface of the board. When the cut 
is nearly finished bear still more lightly, and 
work with gentler strokes, at the same time 
holding up with the left hand the piece that 
you are cutting off, to prevent splintering 
when the saw comes through. 

Having cut off one piece under the super- 
vision of your instructor, you may mark and 
cut off two or three more, each exactly an 
inch wide, till you find you can make a 
smooth and square cut. If you need more 



Wood - Working. 27 



practice you must use a piece of waste wood 
for the purpose, not reducing the length of 
your board to less than 45". The squareness 
of the cut should be tested by applying the 
try-square, with the wooden part first against 
the edge of the board, and then against the 
face. The former test will show whether you 
have cut square across the board, and the latter 
whether you have. cut square through. 



Lesson V. 

Shrinking, Checking, and. Warping of 
Timber. 

WE have already observed that our board 
was cracked at the end. We can under- 
stand this if we consider what happens to 
timber after it is cut down. While the tree is 
growing its pores are full of sap, which is 
mostly water. After the tree is cut, the sap 
begins to evaporate, and the wood shrinks. 
You will have no difficulty in finding, all 
around you, proofs of this shrinking. Flooring- 
boards, panels of doors, bottoms of drawers, 
which fit well when first put in place, all leave 
openings after a while by shrinking. Here are 
several "dowels," which were all cut from the 
same stick, and yesterday they all fitted well 
in the corresponding holes ; but half of them 
have been soaked in water over night, and 
now they will not go into the holes at all. 
The shrinking of timber, you will find, 

28 



Wood - Working. 29 



takes place only in the width, not in the 
length. Examine the floor, and you will find 
that it is only the joints between the edges 
of the boards that have opened. When two 
boards have been put together end to end, 
the joint is as close as in the beginning. 
This fact is very striking, and should be 
remembered. The shrinking of wood causes 
endless trouble in carpentry, cabinet-work, 
and building, and it cannot be entirely pre- 
vented; but, by taking advantage of the fact 
just mentioned, it can often be prevented 
from doing mischief. We shall study some 
of these methods in Lesson 21. 

When the drying of timber goes on at all 
parts with equal rapidity, the piece shrinks 
equally in all parts, and keeps its shape ; but 
in large pieces the drying goes on more 
rapidly on the outside than on the inside, 
and this causes important changes in the 
shape and condition of the wood. We shall 
look at these changes in detail by and by, 
but for the present it will be sufficient to 
note the following facts. 

First, as the outside shrinks faster than the 



30 Manual Training. 

inside, cracks are formed, which begin on the 
outside and gradually extend inward. These 
cracks are largest and most numerous at the 
ends of the log, where the drying is most 
rapid, and they are the cracks which we 
have already noticed in our boards. 

Secondly, when timber has been cut up, if 
by any means one side of a piece is pre- 
vented from drying as fast as another, the 
side which dries most rapidly, and therefore 
shrinks most rapidly, becomes hollow, or the 
piece "warps." Or, if one side of a piece of 
wood which has been dried or "seasoned" is 
exposed to moisture, that side swells and 
becomes convex, and again the piece warps. 
Verify these statements by experiment, laying- 
several pieces of board six or eight inches 
wide and of about the same length on the 
ground for some hours, or even on your 
bench if they have not been very well sea- 
soned, setting up others on their edge so that 
both sides may be equally exposed to the air, 
and noting carefully the results after several 
hours. In the same manner, if wood has been 
already warped, it may be straightened by 
exposing it in the proper way. 



Wood -Working. 31 



(Samples of round timber stripped of the 
bark should be exhibited, showing the checks 
on the surface, and particularly at the ends, 
as well as one sample of a short log, cut up 
into boards, showing the cracks in the ends, 
and the edges of the boards, and in the faces 
of the outside boards or " slabs." The pupils 
should be made to observe for themselves the 
position and direction of these cracks in 
boards cut from different parts of the log. 
They should be made to observe how check- 
ing and warping continue after wood lias 
been made up, if it is exposed, and how they 
are prevented by painting or varnishing). 



Lesson VI. 

Working Sketches. 

IT is proposed to make a box from the piece 
of board used in your seventh exercise. 
The box is to be made, not of any size and 
shape that you may happen to give it, but 
exactly according to given dimensions. This 
is extremely important, for, when an object is 
wanted for a given purpose, it is often worth- 
less if not of just the right size and shape. 

The shape and dimensions of this box, as 
of any other piece of work, can be shown in 
a working drawing or a working sketch. The 
former name is given to a drawing carefully 
made " to scale," and the latter to a drawing 
made with less care, and which may be drawn 
freehand, and only approximately to scale. In 
the latter case the dimensions are marked 
on the corresponding parts of the drawing, 
and can be read off; in the former they are 
ascertained by measuring carefully the dimen- 

32 



Wood - Working. 33 



sions of the drawing, and making the proper 
allowance for the " scale," as will be under- 
stood presently. 

Here is a block of wood, of which we will 
make a sketch first and a drawing afterwards. 
Measuring the block with the rule, we find it 
is 9 inches long, 5 inches wide, and 3J inches 
thick, or as we have agreed to represent it, 
5" x 3J"-9". If we look directly at the front 
of the block, we see a rectangle 9" x 3J", 
which we indicate by drawing, freehand, a 
rectangle whose long side is nearly three 
times as great as its short side, and writing 
on these sides their dimensions, as in Fig. 9. 
This figure we 
call the Ele- 
vation, or the 
Front Elevat- 
ion. If we 
look straight 
down on the 
block, we see a rectangle 9" * 5". This we 
represent in a similar way, Fig. 10, and call 
the representation the Plan. 

From these two, even if we had never seen 




Fiy 9. 



34 



Manual Training. 




the block, we should be able to form a cor- 
rect picture in the mind of its size and shape, 

and a work- 
man would be 
able to make 
one just like 
it. Sometimes, 
however, there 
are details in 
the figure of 
the object 
which these two drawings foil to show. Thus, 
if there were a round hole in the right-hand 
end, neither of these would show it. In such 
case a third figure is added, called the End 
Elevation. This is the view that we get if 
we look directly at the end 
of the object: in the case 
of this block it would be 
another rectangle, 3^" x 5", 
Fig. 11. If we wish to 
show the hole, Ave must 
ascertain exactly its size 
and position, and show them properly in the 
drawing. If the hole is 1" in diameter, and 




j^y. //. 



Wood - Working. 



35 




Fig.JZ, 



placed 3" from one of the narrow faces and 
1" from one of the wide faces, we indicate 
this as in Fig. 12, making the drawing per- 
haps a little larger than 
before, so as to be able 
to write all the necessary 
dimensions. This, how- 
ever, does not show how 
deep the hole is. Suppose 
we find it to be 2" deep. 
Looking at the front of the block again, 
you will understand that, if we could look 
into the block, the hole would appear as at 
a b, Fig. 13. As the lines at a b are, how- 
ever, hidden 
by the ma- 
» terial of the 
block, we 
will indicate 
them by dot- 
ted lines. In 
the same manner the hole may be shown 
in the plan. The three figures being now 
brought together as in Fig. 14, they give 
complete information as to the size and shape 




Fiy. 13. 



36 



Manual Training. 



of the block. This group of drawings thus 
marked, with the dimensions of all the parts, 
we will call a " Figured Sketch" or "Work- 
ing Sketch." It is not necessary that the 
lines be ruled, provided they are drawn toler- 



0" 




9 



JZtvcI jElevatioiv 









^ 








^ 


N 


J^la,n,. 






^ 




i ' — 








i 


«■ 






i ._ 





ably straight, and it is not necessary that they 
be exactly in true proportion to each other, 
though it is best to have them nearly so. 
Every dimension must be given in at least 
one of the drawings. If, for instance, the fig- 



Wood - Working. 37 



ure 3" in the plan were left out, the workman 
who should try to make the block from this 
sketch would not know where to bore the 
hole, unless this figure were given in the End 
Elevation. A dimension, however, which is 
given in one drawing need not be repeated 
in another. Thus the figure 9" in the 
Elevation need not be repeated in the Plan, 
though the repetition does no harm, unless 
the figures are too crowded. 

Having made figured sketches of the block, 
you may now, for exercise, make similar 
sketches of a large nail or spike, a bolt with 
a nut, a six-sided lead-pencil, a try-square, or 
other simple object. In our next lesson we 
will undertake a working drawing. 



IjESSON yu. 
Working Drawings. 

IF, instead of drawing the lines of our last 
lesson freehand, and writing the dimensions 
of the object on the drawing, we rule the 
lines with care, and make them all bear 
exactly the same ratio to the lines they repre- 



Fivf. 15, 






Scale ofTitcfves. 

01Z3%5678 

i i i i i ' 



sent, we have a " Drawing to Scale," or 
"Working Drawing," as in Fig. 15, which 

38 



Wood - Working. 39 



shows the plan, elevation, and side-elevation 
of a box. 

The scale, or ratio of the dimensions in the 
drawing to the corresponding dimensions of 
the object must be indicated on the drawing. 
This may be done in either of three ways. 
Suppose, for instance, the lines of the drawing 
to be one quarter as long as the correspond- 
ing lines of the object. First, we may write 
on the drawing " Scale \ ". Or, secondly, we 
may write " Scale \ " = 1" ", or " Scale 3" = V ". 
Or thirdly, we may draw a straight line of 
any convenient length, divide it into parts, 
of which each represents one inch on the 
object (or one foot, or one meter), and num- 
ber these parts 1, 2, 3, etc. In the case in 
question where the scale is |, each of the 
parts must be actually one quarter of an inch 
long. If the drawing had been made to a 
smaller scale, as T \ for instance, which might 
be written "Scale T \ ", or "1" = 12"", or " 1" 
= 1'" the spaces would have been each one 
inch long, and would have represented each 
one foot in the object. In Fig. 15 all three 
of the modes of representing the scale are 
shown. 



40 Manual Training. 

The scale must be large enough to enable 
the workman to determine from the drawing 
the dimensions of every part of the object. 
Thus, in the last figure, to determine the 
size of the hole in the block, the workman 
would measure with the compasses its diame- 
ter on the drawing. Finding this to be one 
quarter of an inch, he would know that the 
diameter of the hole was to be one inch. 
Next, to determine where to place the hole, 
he would measure the distances on the draw- 
ing from two sides of the end elevation, and 
finding these distances to be each one quarter 
of an inch, he would know that the hole was 
to be one inch from each of the corresponding 
faces of the block, and therefore the center of 
the hole one inch and a half from each of 
these faces. If the scale had been much 
smaller, say iV = l", it would have been 
difficult to measure exactly the dimensions on 
the drawing, and therefore difficult to deter- 
mine exactly the dimensions of the object. 

When an object is large, or contains many 
details, it may be impossible to make the 
scale large enough to show all the details in 



Wood - Working. 



41 



such a way that the workman can get their 
true dimensions from the drawing. It is then 
necessary to add separate drawings of some of 
the details. These are only working drawings 
on a larger scale. Of course the scale of these 
drawings must be indicated also. 




%" 



%" 



JEle-vcLtCcn/ 

13Vz" 



^ 



/b'JlnclJilevaZiori, W 



F-ig. 16. 



$L 



PlayTV. 

In addition to the two elevations, plan, and 
drawings of details, there are sometimes need- 
ed other drawings, called " sections," which 
will be explained hereafter, when they come 
to be needed. 

You will now be able to understand the 



42 Manual Training. 

working sketch, Fig. 16, of the box which 
we propose to make. The front elevation 
shows that the box is 13 J" long and 6" high, 
and the end elevation, or the plan, shows that 
it is 9J" wide. The dotted lines in the front 
elevation show that the front and back pieces 
are fastened on over the ends of the end 
pieces. The same fact may be learned from 
an inspection of the end elevation and plan. 
The figure f " shows that the wood used is £" 
thick. As there may be a doubt whether the 
figures 12" and 8" in the two elevations are 
the inside or the outside measurements of 



Ti 9 J7. 

the box, it is best to remove this ambiguity 
in the following way. Let the figure which 
indicates any dimension be written in the 
middle of a line drawn parallel to the line 



Wood - Working. 43 



to which it belongs, and terminated by arrow- 
heads exactly opposite the ends of the line. 
Thus, Fig. 17, means that the inside length 
of the box is 12 inches, and Fig. 18, means 



Fig. JS, 

that the outside length is 12 inches. In a 
working drawing there would be no such 
ambiguity as this. 



Lesson VIII. 

Making a Nailed Box. — Laying out the 
Work. 

TAKING dimensions from Fig. 16, we see 
that we shall need for our box two pieces 
of £ inch stuff 6" x 8" for the ends, and two 
pieces 6"*13^" for the front and back. Later 
we shall need two pieces each 9 J" x 13 J" for 
the top and bottom, but for the present we 
will leave them out of consideration, to 
simplify the drawings and the laying out of 
our work. 

Take the piece of board used in Lesson IV. 
If the work of that lesson was well done, the 
piece is now square on one end, and a little 
longer than is necessary for the four pieces. 
Furthermore, if it has been properly exposed 
to the air, it has dried well without warping. 

If it is not square on one end, make it so 
with the least possible waste of material, 
remembering that, if you get it less than 
about 44 inches long it will be spoiled. 44 



Wood - Working. 45 



Now, with your rule, lay off 8 inches from 
the squared end, along the best edge of the 
board. Mark this edge with your lead-pencil, 
with a cross or other mark, to distinguish it 
as the edge from which }^ou will work. Place 
the wooden handle of your square against 
this edge, arid draw a pencil-mark square 
across the board, exactly 8 inches from the 
squared end. You have now marked off one 
of the ends of the box, and might proceed to 
cut it off; but it is best to perform all opera- 
tions of one kind at once, and we will therefore 
" lay out " all the pieces before commencing 
to cut them off. 

If you should draw another pencil-line 
just 8 inches from the first, and then proceed 
to cut out the pieces, they would turn out 
too short by the amount of the exercise 8. 
thickness of the saw ; and though Laying out a 
in comparison with some dimen- box - 

sions this thickness is very small, in compari- 
son with some others it is very considerable, 
and it should, therefore, never be neglected. 
Allowance must always be made for the 
"waste" of a saw in cutting to a mark. As 



46 Manual Training. 

you do not know yet how much this waste is, 

you may, after having marked off your first 

piece 8 inches long, begin a cut with the saw 

just outside of the mark, but quite close to it, 

so as to leave the piece exactly 8 inches long. 

Exercise 9. As soon as you have cut a little 

Cross-cutting way into the piece, say an inch, 

with saw. make another mark with pencil 

and square, parallel to the first, and so near 

to it that the two marks just contain the cut 

between them, and no more, as in Fig. 19. 

From these 
you can learn, 
by measuring 

Fi-cr J9 ^ e di^ance 

between them, 
or by observing carefully and remembering, 
how much the saw wastes. You will soon 
be able to make the proper allowance for 
this waste by the eye without measuring. 

Now lay off 8 inches from the second mark, 
draw a third mark and a fourth parallel 
to it for the waste. Then lay off 13^ inches, 
mark off the waste again, lay off 13 \ inches 
again and mark off the waste again, and 



i 



Wood - Working. 



47 



the work is completely laid out. Your piece 
of wood will now be marked as in Fig. 20, 
in which 1 and 2 are the ends, 3 and 4 
are the front and back, and 5 is the waste. 



fty. 20. 



After this lesson you will not make double 
marks for your saw-cuts, but will make the 
necessary allowance for the waste by the 
eye. 

In making pencil-marks, as in this exercise 
you must be careful to apply the square 
always to the same edge of your board, 
distinguishing this edge, as already pointed 
out, by a cross or other mark. Indeed, this 
is an important principle in all laying out of 
work. The reason of it is that, unless the 
opposite edges are parallel, lines drawn 
perpendicular to them with the square will 
not be parallel ; but lines drawn perpendicular 
to the same edge, provided that edge is 
straight, will always be parallel. Try this 



48 Manual Training. 

with your waste-piece, whose opposite sides 
are not quite parallel, drawing your two per- 
pendiculars pretty close together. 

In laying out your work you must see that 
each piece is, if possible, free from knots 
and cracks, particularly at the ends, where 
the nails will have to be driven. If there 
should be a knot at any one of these places, 
at the boundary between 3 and 4 for instance, 
you must try to throw the knot out, by 
shifting 4 to the right, and making the waste 
piece fall in the middle, where the knot is. 

Now place the board in the vise, as in 
Exercise 7, and cut off the four pieces, being 
very careful to keep the saw between the 
double marks, to cut square, and to go gently 
towards the end of the cut, so as to avoid 
splintering. When the four pieces are cut off 
they should be compared with each other two 
and two, measured, and tested with the 
square. 



Lesson IX. 

Hammer and Nails. — Putting a Box 
Together. 

IN using the hammer, the first thing to 
learn is to swing it with a free movement of 
the arm from the elbow rather than from the 
wrist, and the second is to strike squarely 
with the whole face of the hammer rather 
than with one edge. Begin by striking a 
moderately hard blow on your piece of waste 
wood, in one corner of the piece. Examine 
the mark made. You will probably find it 
deeper on one side than on the other, show- 
ing that you have not struck exercise io. 
squarely. Strike again, by the striking with 
side of the first mark, and ex- hammer, 
amine the result, and so on, over the whole 
face of your piece of wood, or until you can 
strike hard and square. 

Take a dozen four-penny nails and exam- 
ine them. (Note that " four-penny" probably 

49 



50 



Manual Training. 



U 



SnP 



meant, originally, weighing four pounds to the 
hundred, and thus four-penny, six-penny, etc. 
give some indication of the size of the nails.) 
Observe that the nails have two sides parallel, 
as shown in the side-elevation, Fig. 21, b, 
while the other two sides, as 
shown in a, act as a wedge, and 
will split the wood if it is weak. 
The wedge, therefore, must be 
made to act in the direction in 
which the wood is strongest, that 
is, as we learned in Lesson III., 
in the direction of the length 
of the fibers. 

Now, holding a nail between 

the fingers and thumb of the 

left hand, in the proper position to enter the 

wood without splitting, drive it into your piece 

of waste wood f " from the end, till the point 

exercise ii. just shows through on the other 

side. Now draw it out with 

the claw of the hammer. To 



Fvg.21- 



Driving and 
drawing a nail. 

do this place a block of wood under the head 
of the hammer to lift it up to the height 
of the head of the nail ; catch the head 



Wood - Working. 51 



of the nail with the claw, and while the 
hammer rests on the block with the handle 
up, swing the end of the handle over so as 
to raise the claw, and the nail will come 
out. If the block is not used to raise the 
hammer, the nail will be bent. Drive the 
nail in the same way and draw it several 
times, always f" from the end of the piece, 
but always in the first position, or so as 
not to split the piece. Afterwards, drive it sev- 
eral times in the second position, at the same 
distance from the end, and observe that you 
will nearly always split the piece. Note well 
these two positions. Observe that you can 
distinguish the one from the other by the 
shape of the head or by the way the nail 
feels between the fingers, and you should 
never hereafter split a piece of wood by care- 
lessly driving a nail in the wrong way. 

Now, taking the long sides of your box, 
draw a light pencil-mark across each end, f" 
from the edge, and make on this Exercise 12. 
line two dots, each an inch from Nailing a box. 
the end of the line, and a third half-way 
between them, for the places where the nails 



52 Manual Training. 

are to be driven, as in Fig. 22. Drive six 
nails nearly through at these places. Then, set- 
ting one of the short sides upright in the vise, 
lay the end of the long piece on it, exactly 

as it is to go 
when the box 
is put to- 

__ . gether ^ being 

careful, while 
holding the long piece in the left hand, to 
let the fore-finger reach round the edge, so 
as to feel whether the edge of the upper piece 
and the face of the lower piece are exactly 
even. Drive the middle nail through into 
the end piece, but do not drive its head 
quite down. This will now hold the piece 
firmly enough, while allowing you to adjust 
it and drive the other two nails down to the 
same distance. The heads of the nails are 
left projecting a little, so that it may be 
easy to draw them if necessary. The second 
corner may be nailed in the same way, and 
the six nails driven " home," that is, till the 
heads are even with the surface of the wood, 
taking care not to bruise the wood with the 



Wood - Working. 53 



hammer. For the third and fourth corners 
lay the nailed piece down on the bench, 
with the short pieces standing up, lay the 
fourth side in place, holding it as you did 
the first, and drive the other nails with the 
same precautions as before. 

If the pieces have been properly cut and 
properly nailed, the box will now be square 
at all its corners, the diagonals will be of 
equal lengths, and when it is set on the bench 
all the corners will rest on the bench and 
the sides will be perpendicular to it. You 
should test your work as to these particulars 
with rule and square. 



Lesson X. 

The same Continued. 

THERE will now no doubt.be two classes 
of boxes in the class, as the result of the 
last exercise. The first will be smaller or 
larger than they were intended to be, or they 
will be not quite square at the corners, or 
they will be "winding," that is, when set 
on a flat surface like that of the bench they 
will touch at three corners only. The second 
will be true to dimensions and shape, and 
will be " out of winding." 

The test for " winding " is important, and 
may be made in several ways. We cannot 
always depend on the test by laying on the 
bench as already described, since the bench 
itself may be in winding, or the object may 
be too large to be tested in this way, or too 
small to show the defect. A second, and 
more common way of testing an object of 
moderate size, such as one of your boxes, is 

54 



Wood - Working. 55 



to hold it up before one eye, keeping the 
other closed, and look across one of the 
edges at the other edge. If. the front edge 
exactly covers the hind edge, there is no 
winding ; but if one end of * the hind edge 
stands up above the front edge when the 
other end is exactly covered, the object is 
winding. When the object is very small it 
is sometimes hard to detect the fault in this 
way. In this case the error may be exagger- 
ated and made perceptible by means of 
" winding sticks." These are two " straight 
edges" or strips of wood with exercise 13. 
straight and parallel edges. Sup- Test for wind . 
pose two such strips, say in s- 

2"xi / '-24 ; to be laid across your box at 
opposite ends. If the winding be too small 
to be noticed when you look across the box 
itself, you may yet be able to detect it when 
it is exaggerated by these long sticks. In 
this way, even the winding in the edge of 
a board may be detected. 

This and the other tests being applied, we 
will suppose your boxes divided into two 
classes, as already described. Those of the 



56 Manual Training. 

second class, being perfect, or nearly so, we 
might finish up, by furnishing them with 
bottoms of the same material, fastened, like 
the sides, with nails. These boxes, being all 
of the same size, might be piled up in a set 
or "nest," and used for the stowing of nails, 
screws, glue, and other materials used in the 
shop. Instead of doing this, however, we will 
take the boxes of both classes apart, and 
use the material in making another set of 
boxes of better finish than these, and requir- 
ing the use of other tools and more practiced 
hands. 

To knock your box apart without splitting 

it, hold it by one of the long sides and 

exercise 14. strike the other long side, inside 

Taking apart of the corner, with a hammer. 

nailed work. j) not strike directly on the 

wood, in which case you will probably split 

it, and certainly bruise it, but on a strip laid 

in the corner to receive the blow. If there is 

not room to strike with the face of the 

hammer, strike with the side. Striking in 

one corner and the other alternately, you will 

probably separate the box at two corners, and 



Wood - Working. 57 



so take off one of the long sides, after which, 
holding the short sides and repeating the 
operation with the same care as before, you 
will take off the other side. Drive out the 
nails by striking them on the points, and 
straighten them by striking them gently with 
the hammer on the convex side while holding 
them on a block of wood, — not on the bench, 
as you would thus mar the bench. 

For the new box that we propose to make, 
we will reduce a little the thickness of our 
pieces of wood, and give them a finer surface 
than the mill-dressed surface that they 
received from the planing-machine. Your 
exercises with the hatchet and the knife have 
shown you the difficulty, if not the impossi- 
bility, of finishing a piece smooth with either 
of these tools. You will be ready, therefore, 
to appreciate the value of the plane. 



LiESSON XI. 
The Jack-Plane. 

YOU have seen how the knife or the 
hatchet tends to follow the grain of the 
wood, and, if the grain happens to run inward 
rather than outward, splits off large pieces, 
thus making fine work impossible. The knife 
or " iron " of the plane is prevented from 
doing this, and so, with this tool, work may 
be finished up very smooth. The plane-iron, 
as you see, is set in a block of wood through 
which it projects only a short distance, and 
as the block rests on the surface of the wood, 
the iron cannot penetrate beyond this distance. 
If you set the plane down on the surface of 
a board, and press down on it, the iron will 
cut into the wood until the block comes in 
contact with the board, and then it can go 
no further. If now we push the plane 
forward, the edge of the iron moves say 
from a to 6, Fig. 23 ; but, instead of following 

53 



Wood - Working. 59 



the grain, and cutting deeper and deeper, it 
is forced to remain at the same distance 
below the surface. It thus lifts up the thin 
layer or " shaving," bending it upwards as it 



^jt^ 






a* 



Fig- *3\ 



advances, and delivering it out of the " mouth" 
of the plane. The tool thus described is the 
plane with a single iron. 

When we use this tool, however, although 
the iron itself cannot penetrate far into the 
wood, it is still possible that, while the end 
of the shaving slides up the surface of the 
iron, the split, once commenced, may run 
some distance into the wood. In this case, 
the strong splinter torn up may stop the 
plane, or, breaking off, may leave a rough 
surface. To prevent this a second iron or 
"cap" is introduced, thus making the plane 
with double iron. The cap is secured to 



60 



Manual Training. 



the cutting iron by a screw as in Fig. 24, 
and the two are put together into the block, 
and held in place by a 
wedge, as you will readily 
understand on examining 
the plane on your bench. 
Figures 23 and 24 should 
be carefully compared with 
your plane, by way of fur- 
J?tq*2&. ther illustration of the 
principles of mechanical 
drawing explained in Les- 
son VI. 

With this instrument it is impossible" for 
the end of the shaving to slide far up the 
iron, and cause a deep split in the wood, 
because the shaving is caught by the back 
iron or cap and bent forward. If the cap is 
thick enough, and set near enough to the 
edge of the cutting-iron, it will bend the 
shaving so abruptly as to break it. As long 
as the shaving was a strong stick or splinter, 
as at a 6, Fig. 25, the forward movement of 
the cutting-iron tended to lift this stick up 
without breaking it, and extend the split 




Wood - Working. 



61 



down into the wood; but when the end of 
the splinter is turned up and broken off, as 
at c d, the cutting-iron cuts partly through 
the base of the remaining short piece, turning 





Ftg. 25. 

up a longer splinter, which is again broken 
off, and so on, till the splinter curls up as 
a thin " shaving," as at e f. 

When you examine one of the thin shav- 



62 Manual Training. 

ings taken off by such a plane, you find 
that it is cracked or broken across at equal 
short distances. Thus it is so much weak- 
ened that the cutting-iron cannot lift it up 
by the end and continue the split down into 
the wood. 

With this partial view of the mode of action 
of the plane we can now go on to consider 
the way of using it. The discussion of the 
several kinds of planes, and of the methods 
of sharpening them and of adjusting them 
for different kinds of work, will come later. 

For your first exercise in planing, the tool 
called a "jack-plane" will be used. It is 
designed for coarse work, such as removing 
the rough outside of a plank, or cutting off 
considerable quantities of material. As it is 
intended to cut pretty thick shavings, the 
cap is set well back from the edge of 
the cutting-iron (|" to j% ff ), the cutting-iron 
is allowed to project considerably from the 
block, and its edge is curved, as you will 
notice, so that the middle of it projects 
farther, and therefore cuts deeper than the 
corners. Your jack-plane has been already 



Wood -Working. 63 



sharpened and adjusted for the kind of work 
you are going to do. It is intended to plane 
up the sides of your box ; but it will be well, 
before undertaking this, to try your hand on 
another piece of wood of about the same size. 
To make the exercise as simple as possible, 
pick out a piece which is not winding. 

You find at the left end of your bench a 
stop or " bench-hook," to prevent the piece 
that you are planing from sliding forward. 
Examine the construction of this bench-hook. 
Observe how it is raised and lowered, and 
fastened in any desired position. Set it so 
that it shall stand up above your bench a 
little less than the thickness of the piece 
that you are going to plane. If your bench 
has a wooden " bench-pin " instead of the 
bench -hook the mode of adjusting this is 
obvious. Lay your piece of wood on the 
bench, with the end against the bench-hook. 
Hold the plane by the handle with the 
right hand. Take hold of the front of the 
plane with the left hand, the thumb being 
on the side nearest your body, and the 
fingers on the other side. This throws the 



64 Manual Training. 

left elbow up, and enables you to press down 
on the front of the plane. It is not, however, 
generally necessary to press down very hard : 
if the plane is sharp and properly adjusted 
exercise 15. it will take hold without this, 

use of the J ust as * ne saw does. In this 
Jack-plane, position, push the plane forward 
from end to end of the piece, trying to take 
off a shaving the whole length. If the first 
shaving is taken from the left-hand edge, let 
the next be just to the right of this, and so 
on, till you have gone over the entire breadth 
of the piece, not missing any portion of the 
surface. You will of course have to change 
the position of the piece from time to time, 
so that the portion on which the plane is 
working shall be opposite the bench-hook. 

In the management of the jack-plane the 
chief points to be attended to are these: 

1. During the first part of the stroke press 
down most with the left hand, to prevent 
the rear end of the plane from dropping, 
and so cutting off too much of the rear end 
of the piece. 

2. In the same manner, bear down, during 



Wood - Working. 65 



tin* last part of the stroke, on the handle of 
the plane, to prevent the front from fulling. 
If these two points be neglected, the piece 
will present, when planed, the appearance 



j 



Fig. 26. 

shown in Fig. 26 : a straight-edge laid upon 
the surface will not touch at the ends. 

3. Do not continue to plane any particular 
spot merely because it happens to work easily : 
you will thus get the surface uneven, and be 
obliged, after all, to plane away the rest of 
the piece to the same level with the soft part 
on which you have been working. 

4. Do not, as a general rule, work " against 
fche grain," that is, in such a direction as 
from a to g, Fig. 25, or from c to / in the 
same figure. When you work thus, each fiber 
is torn some little distance 'down into the 
wood before it is cut off, and the result is a 
number of small shallow pits, deeper at one 
end than at the other, leaving the surface 
rough, as in Fig. 27, in which the appearance 



66 



Manual Training. 



is exaggerated, to show the character of the 
effect. Planing with the grain, the tool, as it 
cuts off each fiber and bends it up, makes a 
split which runs outward, across the shaving, 
instead of inward into the piece, and thus 




JFig.tr. 

leaves the surface smooth. As the grain often 
runs differently in different parts of the 
piece (as it does, for example, in Fig. 25) it 
will be necessary, in such cases, to turn 
the piece from time to time, as you work 
on different parts. While it is not best 
in general to work against the grain, it is 
often allowable, and even preferable, to do 
so when a considerable thickness of wood is 
to be removed, as the plane, if not set too 
coarse, works freer and more rapidly against 
the grain than with it. In this case also, 
however, it will be necessary, when nearly the 
desired amount of wood has been taken off, 
to turn the piece, and finish with the grain. 
5. Work, whenever you can, with the 



Wood - Working. 67 



plane as with other tools, with long, steady 
strokes. When you are obliged to turn the 
piece frequently, because of the crookedness 
of the grain, this is of course impracticable. 

Bearing these points in mind, and having 
first practiced on the extra piece of wood, 
you may now plane up one surface of each 
of your pieces with the jack-plane, provided 
the surface is not winding : if any surface is 
winding we will reserve its treatment for 
another exercise. When you have done this, 
you will find that the marks made by the 
saw (" saw-kerfs " they are called), as well as 
any stains or rough spots, have been removed; 
but the general surface, though clean, is now 
marked with- a series of broad and shallow 
furrows or valleys separated by low ridges 
which are due to the curved form of the 
iron, and which will appear very conspicuous 
if you lay a straight-edge crosswise on your 
piece. In our next lesson we will endeavor 
to remove these furrows and make the sur- 
face smooth. 



Lesson XII. 

The Smoothlng-Plane. 

TO cut the ridges left by the jack-plane 
down to the level of the valleys is the 
next operation. It may be performed, 
imperfectly, with the jack-plane. To do 
this the cutting-iron must be drawn back 
so that it shall not project so far through 
the block, and as this adjustment is fre- 
quently needed for the purpose of adapting 
the jack-plane, or any other plane, to hard or 
crooked-grained wood, it may be learned and 
exercise 16. practiced here. If you strike the 
upper surface of the plane near 

Adjustment 

of cutting- the front, two or three moderately 



iron. 



hard blows with the hammer, 
the wedge will be loosened and the iron 
will move up out of the block. You must 
be careful not to strike too hard, or you 
will, in the first place bruise the plane-block, 
and in the second place loosen the wedge 



Wood -Working. 69 



and iron too much. By turning the plane 
up and looking down the " sole " from front 
to rear you can see how much the iron 
projects, and judge whether you have it right. 
If you get it back too far, you can drive it 
forward again to the right amount by gentle 
blows of the hammer on its upper edge. 
When you have it just right, you must drive 
the wedge tight again. 

For the purpose for which you are now 
going to use the plane the iron should project 
very little, and the cap should exercise 17. 
come very close to the edge of _ ~ 

J n Smoothing 

the iron. As the edge of the with jack- 
iron is curved, it will not be plane, 
possible to make the surface of the wood 
plane : you can only replace the deep valleys 
by shallower ones, and to make them as 
shallow as possible the iron must project as 
little as possible. With this precaution, go 
over again the sides that you have already 
planed and make them as smooth as you 
can, remembering the warning concerning plan- 
ing against the grain. The operation you 
have just performed can be better done, par- 



70 



Manual Training. 



ticularly on large surfaces, with another plane, 
called the fore-plane. This is longer and 
heavier than the jack-plane, and has an iron 
which, as shown in Fig. 28, 6, is broader 
than that of the jack-plane, Fig. 28, a, and 
has an edge which is straight, except just at 

the corner. It is easy 



o 



\_A: 



TCy. 28. 



o 



w 



to see that this plane, 
if properly used, is 
capable of making a 
large surface even, or 
"plane." It is managed 
in the same way as 
the jack-plane, only 
requiring a little more 
care to prevent either 
end from dropping at 
beginning or end of 
the stroke. It will 
not be necessary to 
use this tool on the small pieces of this 
exercise, but we will finish up these pieces 
with the smoothing-plane. This plane is 
usually employed after the fore-plane. It 
is short and light, and specially adapted for 



«. 



Wood - Working. 71 



making short and quick strokes. It is there- 
fore exactly fitted for following the fore-plane 
(or the jack-plane when used as in this 
exercise) to remove the small pits which 
result from the former plane's having worked, 
in some places, against the grain. Observing 
the same precautions as with the exercise is. 
jack-plane, and in particular Use ^7t he 
reversing the direction of your smootning- 
work as often as the grain of P lane - 
the wood requires it, go over your pieces 
with the smoothing-plane till the ridges left 
by the jack-plane are all cut down, and the 
first surface of each piece is made quite 
straight and smooth. Test this with the 
straight-edge. 

We supposed, a little while ago, that the 
surface of one of your pieces was winding. 
If it was not so, it is very likely that one of 
the surfaces may have become so exercise 19. 
during the operation of planing R& ~ n& 
it. Test these pieces and pick winding, 
out any that are winding, or make one so 
by planing off a little from one corner. 
Suppose A B G D, Fig. 29, to be the piece, and 



72 Manual Training. 

suppose that, when you hold it up, with the 

edge D G towards you, so that the end C just 

hides B, the end A stands above D. This 

„ _, indicates 



that some- 
thing has 

to be taken 
Z) Fiy.29> C off from 

either A or G. Place a bit of shaving under 
the corner A to support it. Then, applying 
the jack-plane near D G, take first a short 
stroke at 0, then a little longer one, and so 
on, ending with a stroke nearly but not quite 
the whole length of G D. The portion of the 
board near G is now lower, and when tested 
as before the piece will be less winding. If 
you have taken off too much, the winding 
will even be reversed, and G and A will 
appear too low instead of too high. You 
must avoid this result by testing the piece 
frequently while working, otherwise you will 
get first one winding and then the other, 
and will plane your piece too thin before 
you get it true. Having at length made one 
surface of each of your pieces quite free from 



Wood - Working. 73 



winding and perfectly straight and smooth, 
mark this with your pencil as the standard 
surface from which all the others are to be 
formed. 

Having now finished the first faces of 
all your pieces, these pieces must be reduced 
to the proper thickness, and the second 
surfaces must be made parallel to the first, 
and smooth. The proper thickness is first to 
be marked round the edge of each piece 
with the gauge. If you have not wasted 
material in making the first surface true, 
you ought to be able to finish up the pieces 
of your last exercise to a thickness of half 
an inch. 

Loosen the screw of your gauge, and, hold- 
ing your rule in the left hand, set the gauge 

by it to half an inch, and 

Exercise 20. 
tighten the screw moderately. 

Try, with the rule, whether the G"* * 

gauge is set exactly right. If not, move it 

the necessary amount by striking one end 

or the other of the handle a few times on 

the bench, and when it is exactly right 

fasten the head in position with the screw, 



74 Manual Training. 

but not so tightly as to bruise the handle 
with the point of the screw. 

To mark a piece, hold it in the left hand 
with the edge up and resting on the bench, 
the finished side towards the right. Place the 
head of the gauge against the finished 
side, and push it from you along the edge of 
the piece from end to end, not with a series 
of short jerks, but with one long, steady 
stroke. The point, resting lightly on the edge 
of the piece, will make a straight mark 
parallel to the face of the piece. The 
commonest fault in the use of the gauge is to 
bear too heavily on the marking-point, caus- 
ing it to sink too deeply into the wood. It 
then moves along, not smoothly, but with a 
series of jumps, marking deeply in some 
places and in others not at all, and sometimes 
following the grain of the wood, and thus 
making a crooked mark, instead of being 
directed by the face of the piece and making 
a straight mark. To avoid this fault proceed 
as follows : When you set the head of the 
gauge against the side of the board, if you 
hold it so that the marking-point shall stand 



Wood - Working. 



75 



perpendicular to the edge of the board, as in 
Fig. 30, a, it can penetrate the wood to its 
full length. If you incline the top of the 
marking-point forward, as in Fig. 30, b, the 
corner of the 

r 



handle will bear 
upon the board 
and lift the point 
up so that it 
will penetrate to 
a less depth or 
not at all. Now, 
hold it at first 
so that the point 
shall only just 
touch, and in 
this position 





Fisy.30. 



make a very light mark the whole length 
of the piece. Then returning to the begin- 
ning, hold the gauge so that the point may 
penetrate a little deeper, and again mark the 
whole length of the piece, and so on until a 
sufficiently plain mark has been made. It is 
seldom necessary to make a deep mark. All 
that is required is a mark that can be 



76 Manual Training. 

readily seen, and the lightest mark that will 
serve this purpose is best. 

Mark in this way the four edges of all 

your pieces. Then, with the jack-plane, plane 

them down just to the marks, being - very 

exercise 21. careful not to go even a little 

Planing to t0 ° far - If y° u g° beyond the 
thickness, mark the piece is spoiled. 
Finish up with the smoothing-plane. If the 
work has been well done, each of the faces 
should be perfectly plane, free from winding, 
and quite smooth, and the pieces should be 
everywhere exactly half an inch thick. 

After planing the sides of your pieces, 

plane one edge, holding the piece in the vise, 

exercise 22. anc ^ being very careful not to 

cut off too much at either end, 

Squaring the 

edge of a and not to let the plane tip over 
board - either to the right or the left. 
Test for the first fault with the corner of the 
jack-plane used as a straight-edge, and for 
the second with the try-square. In applying 
the square always apply it to the side first 
finished and marked. One edge being finished 
straight and square, set the gauge to 5| 



Wood - Working. 77 



inches, and mark the pieces to this width 
from the finished edge. When the gauge is 
set so wide as this, it is even more necessary 
than before to bear lightly on it. It is more 
difficult to control the gauge exercise 23. 
when so wide open, and if the „ . 

1 Gauging and 

point enters too deep it will jump planing to 
and make a crooked mark. Hav- width, 
ing marked all the pieces to the proper width, 
plane the second edges down to the mark, 
but not beyond it. 



Lesson XIII. 

Back-saw and Bench-dog. 

THE pieces you have been working on are 
now of the uniform thickness of half an 
inch and of the breadth of 5f inches. They 
are still marred, however, by the nail-holes 
made in them in a former exercise. They are 
now to be cut off square, a little shorter than 
before, and smoother at the ends than we 
were able to make them with the ordinary 
cross-cut-saw. For this work we will use the 
" back-saw" or " tenon -saw." This saw is 
shorter and thinner than the one you have 
used before, and has more teeth to the inch. 
Its teeth also are not bent sideways or " set " 
as much as those of the cross-cut-saw. Ex- 
amine the two saws carefully, and compare 
them in these particulars. The back-saw 
being thinner than other saws is more likely 
to bend. To prevent bending it is provided 
with a stiff back, which gives it its name. 

78 



Wood - Working. 79 



While this allows the saw to be made thinner, 
and therefore fits it for finer work, it limits, 
of course, the depth of the cut that can be 
made with it. A back-saw still smaller, 
thinner, and finer than the tenon-saw that 
yon have, and with no set to its teeth, is 
called a " dove-tail " saw. 

In working with small back-saws, it is 
generally the case that a number of pieces 
are to be cut in quick succession. Too much 
time would be wasted if these were all to be 
fastened in the vise before cutting them, and 
besides, the firm grip of the vise is not neces- 
sary. Small pieces are most conveniently cut 
on the " bench -dog " which you find on your 
bench, and which is shown, in elevation and 
plan, in Fig. 31. Lay the dog on your bench, 
one of the cross-strips being downward and rest- 
ing against the front of the bench. Laying the 
piece that is to be cross-cut on the dog and 
resting against the other cross-strip, with the 
end that is to be cut off projecting a little 
beyond the right-hand edge of the dog, you 
can easily hold it with the left hand, and 
cut off the piece required. In the case of 



80 



Manual Training. 



the pieces you have been using we will cut 
off enough to remove the nail-holes. Half an 
inch at each end of the long pieces will suffice 
for this. This will reduce the long pieces to 






// 



3" 


i Oft 



Fly. 31. 



\\\ inches, and, to keep nearly the same 
proportion of length to breadth as before, 
we will take off f of an inch from each end 
of the short pieces, reducing them to 7| 
inches. 



Wood- Working. 81 



Having made the necessary pencil-marks 
with the square, as in Lesson VIII., remember- 
ing all the cautions there given as to working 
with your square always from the same edge 
and side, allowing for the waste of the saw, 
and so on, you will proceed to cut off the 
narrow pieces from the ends, making first a 
few trial cuts on another piece, to get the 
necessary steadiness of hand. In cutting with 
the back-saw, hold the saw with exercise 24. 
its edge nearly parallel to the cross-cutting 
surface of the piece, but let the with back-saw. 
tip of the saw drop a little at first, so as to 
begin the cut at the farther edge of the board. 
Remember the injunctions to cut slowly at 
first, to keep the saw upright, not to force it, 
and to cut gently when the saw is nearly 
through. If you have carried the pencil- 
marks all round the pieces, there will always 
be one of the marks on the faces and one 
of those on the edges in view to guide you. 

The pieces being now, if your w r ork has been 
well done, exactly alike in pairs, are ready 
to be formed into a box of much better finish 
than the one first made with nails. We will 



82 Manual Training. 

put it together with " dove-tail " joints ; but 
before this can be done it will be necessary 
to acquire some skill in the use of the chisel. 
Two other pieces may be cut out and planed 
up for the top and bottom. You may deter- 
mine the proper size for these, and lay them 
out and get them ready yourself. 

In cutting out these pieces you will have 
to saw lengthwise of the grain, and will use 
the " rip-saw " for this purpose. You will 
observe that this has larger teeth than the 
cross-cut -saw, that the front faces of the teeth 
are square instead of having sharp edges, and 
that the angle of the tooth is smaller. On 

considering a little you 
b will see that these 

VvvVvVv differences are in ac- 

cordance with what we 

have learned about the 

d different strength of 

VVV\AA/VV W oocl in different di- 
e 

Fly. 3 2. rections. The lower 

edge of the tooth of 

the rip-saw, at a, Fig. 32, has to cut across 

the fibers, and must therefore be sharp. The 



Wood - Working. 83 



front a b has only to push the pieces out, 
and is therefore blunt. In the case of the 
cross-cut saw, it is the front edge c d that 
cuts across the grain, and is therefore filed 
sharp, and the pieces are pus'hed out by the 
point c. Furthermore, as the edge c d is to 
cut the fibers, it will work best when it 
falls on them not quite perpendicularly, but 
obliquely, which is the reason why c d is not 
perpendicular to the edge of the saw, as a b is. 




Fig. 33. 




On the other hand, the corner a of the tooth 
of the rip-saw, being a sort of chisel, works 
best when driven obliquely across the fibres. 
In ripping the piece D E, therefore, Fig. 33, 
the saw should be held as shown, rather than 
perpendicular to the length of the board. 



84 Manual Training. 

In making a long cut with the rip-saw, you 
will sometimes be hindered by the springing 
together of the parts that are already cut, 
causing them to " pinch " the saw and resist 
its motion. The remedy for this is to insert 
a wedge, such as a chisel, a screw-driver, 
or a piece of wood, in the cut near the saw. 
Towards the end of the cut care must be 
taken that this wedge does not split the 
board. 

The six pieces are now to be put away 
while the use of the chisel is being learned, 
by which time they will be thoroughly sea- 
soned. They must be set up on edge with a 
space of at least an inch between them for 
circulation of air, so that they may not warp. 
You may mark on each piece its exact dimen- 
sions, and note, when you take it up again, 
how much it has shrunk in each direction. 



Lesson XIV. 

The Chisel. 

OBSERVE the form of the inch chisel on 
your bench. Its back is perfectly straight 
and flat. Its face makes with its back an 
angle of twenty-five degrees, and just at the 
edge is a short face which makes with the 
back a somewhat larger angle, namely, 35°. 
This form is given to the chisel in the follow- 
ing way : First, it is held on the grindstone 
till the face A B, Fig. 34, is formed, making 
with the 

back the 4^—-^~ — & ~\ 

angle 25°. 
Then the 

part near J)^^- -r j 

A is rubbed „. „, 

on the oil- 
stone, in a manner which will be explained 
presently, making the narrow face A I). This 
face is exaggerated in the figure, to make it 

85 



86 Manual Training. 

clear; it should be less than half as wide as it 
is there shown. If you examine the chisel on 
your bench, which is in good condition, you 
easily detect on D B the scratches made by the 
grindstone, while A D, which was finished on 
the fine-grained oil-stone, is smooth and bright, 
and the edge at A is very keen. This is the 
condition in which the chisel and all similar 
cutting tools should be constantly kept. 
When the tool is dull you cannot do fine 
work with it; and, moreover, in trying to 
force it you are very apt to make it slip 
and cut yourself, so that a dull tool is really 
more dangerous than a sharp one. 

The chisel and the plane have the same 
form of cutting edge and require the same 
treatment. Other cutting tools resemble these 
in general, but differ in respect to the size 
of the cutting angle, and some other par- 
ticulars. It will be readily understood that if 
the tool is to be used on hard material, it 
must be stronger, to prevent its breaking or 
" nicking " on the edge, and therefore the angle 
must be larger. As we become acquainted 
with various tools for cutting wood and metals 



Wood - Working. 87 



we shall find that this angle has very differ- 
ent values, reaching even to 90° in some 
lathe-tools for cutting metals. 

There are several different ways of holding 
the chisel, according to the kind of work to 
be done and the force required. 

1. In paring off thin shavings the chisel is 
intermediate, as to the quality of the work it 
can do, between the knife and the plane. We 
will take, for an exercise of this kind, a piece 
of pine or of whitewood with a rough or 
crooked edge, which we will make straight 
and smooth as in Exercise 4, but with the 
chisel instead of the knife. We will cut from 
a 11" or \\" plank a piece 9 inches long, 
and will split from this, with the hatchet, 
pieces about 2" wide. We will select for the 
purpose a plank which, though of good qual- 
ity, is not very straight-grained, so as to give 
us some little difficulty in dealing with the 
grain. 

Holding one of these pieces in the vise, 
with one of the crooked edges upward, take 
the end of the handle of the chisel in the 
hollow of the right hand, the thumb and first 



88 Manual Training. 

finger lying forward on the handle, and the 
other fingers curved under and grasping it. 
exercise 25. Lay the back of the chisel (not 
Paring with the beveled side) flat on the sur- 
chisei. face of the wood, and hold it 
down with two or three fingers of the left hand 
lying on the blade, a little way back from 
the edge. Pushing the chisel forward it will 
now cut off projecting masses very much as 
the plane does. (If the edge of the piece is 
very crooked, so that much wood has to be 
removed, as in Fig. 4, p. 10, it may be scored 
and split, exactly, as in the exercise with the 
knife or the hatchet.) This operation of 
paring is very simple so long as the grain is 
quite straight, or even when it is moderately 
crooked, provided you can work with the 
grain : it is only necessary to push the chisel 
with a steady movement lengthwise along the 
piece, and the back of the chisel, like the sole 
of the plane, prevents its entering too deep. 
But when the grain is very irregular, so that 
as the tool advances you find it working now 
with the grain and now against it in quick 
succession, it will be found best to work with 



Wood -Work i ii (j. 



89 



a sliding rather than a pushing movement, 
obliquely, across the grain rather than along 
it. Thus, if the grain runs as shown in the 
elevation A, Fig. 35, then, in paring the upper 




J3 



edge, shown in plan at B, if the chisel moves 
from right to left, it will work against the 
grain in going over the spaces b c, d e, f g, etc., 
and with the grain over the spaces a b, c d, 
e f, etc. It will be found best, then, as it is 
not practicable to reverse the direction of the 
work so often, to lay the chisel on the work, 



I 



JFty. 36. 

not as shown in Fig. 36, but obliquely, as in 
Fig. 37, and in moving the chisel, not only 



90 Manual Training. 

to push it in the direction of the arrow a, but 
to give it, at the same time, a sliding motion 
towards the right or left. The first move- 
ment alone would make the chisel come out 

O Q JP 



Fiy 37. 




at ; the second would bring it out at P; 
the two movements together make it come out 
at Q. This sliding movement of the chisel, 
like that of the knife already spoken of (see 
p. 4) is very important, and you should take 
pains to get command of it. With it wood 
can be pared smooth which would be quite 
unmanageable without it. The reason of this 
can now be easily understood. The edge of 
a knife, chisel, or plane, however keenly it 
is sharpened, is always more or less jagged 
like a saw. On some tools you can feel the 
inequalities or teeth with the finger, and even 



Wood - Working. 91 



when, as in a well-sharpened razor, you can- 
not feel them, you can see them under a 
microscope. When the tool has the sliding 
movement that has been described, these teeth 
catch the fibers crosswise and cut them off, 
while, if it is pushed straight forward, it forces 
itself between the fibers, as a wedge, and 
splits them apart along the grain. 

Paying attention to the points just men- 
tioned, you may now, drawing a straight 
line on your piece of wood about a quarter 
of an inch back from the edge, pare the 
edge down to the mark, making it straight, 
square, and smooth. Test your work carefully 
with respect to all these requirements, and do 
not be satisfied till you have produced a 
really good result. 

When you have worked with the chisel or 
other cutting tool some time, it becomes dull, 
and does not cut well. If you examine its 
cutting edge you will find that instead of 
being quite invisible, as it was at first, it is 
visible as a bright shining edge, and instead 
of feeling very keen to the end of the finger, 
it is smooth and rounded. Under a glass it 



92 Manual Training. 

would appear as at a, Fig. 38, rather than as 

at b. The keen edge must be restored by 

sharpening on the oil-stone. 

exercise 26. A plane-iron and a chisel are 

sharpening sharpened in the same way, and 

a chisel. it is of the utmost importance 

that this should be done properly. Having 

put a few drops 



en 



2. 



of oil on the 
stone, take the 
chisel in the right 
hand, place the 

, ^~- -7 beveled face on 

JFi.q.38. t ne stone and 

press it down 
with two or three fingers of the left hand held 
near the edge of the blade. At first place the 
tool on the stone so that the beveled face 
touches all over, Fig. 39, a. Then raise the 
right hand a little, so that only the small 
bevel shall touch, as at b. Be careful not to 
raise the hand too high : it is only necessary 
to just miss rubbing the large bevel. If the 
hand is raised too high, the edge will be 
worn away too much, and the angle of the 



Wood - Working. 



93 



chisel will be too large. Until the right way 
of holding has become habitual, it may be 



a. 





noted that the height of the end of the 
handle above the surface of the stone should 
be about six-tenths of the length of the tool 
and handle. Thus, if the entire length of 
the chisel is 10 inches, the middle of the 
circular end of the handle should be 6 inches 
above the stone. In rubbing the tool on 
the stone, the hand must be pushed to and 
fro parallel to the stone, not rising and falling 
a little, which would make the edge of the 
tool round. 

If the chisel has not been neglected too 
long it will not be necessary to rub it much 



94 Manual Training. 

It is only necessary to remove the roundness 
just described. When this is done, the metal 
will begin to turn up a little on the back, 
making a roughness called a " wire-edge," as 
shown, exaggerated, in Fig. 40. This wire- 
edge is removed by laying the flat side on 

the stone and 

^ f giving the tool 

JFiy.4-0. a few light 

strokes. It 
must not be at all tipped up during this 
operation, nor the operation continued long, 
or the back will be rounded and the tool 
spoiled. The operations being repeated once 
or twice, more and more lightly, a fine keen 
edge will appear. 

In using any cutting tool, it will be found 
much the best plan to sharpen it frequently. 
If this is done, it will require only a slight 
rubbing each time, and the best quality of 
work can be done with a tool thus kept in 
order. 

When the tool has been sharpened very 
often the short bevel near the edge be- 
comes wide, and much work is then 



Wood - Working. 95 



required to sharpen it on the oil-stone. It 
must then be ground on the grind-stone. 
The long bevel, which makes the smaller 
angle with the back (D B, Fig. 34) is to be 
held on the stone, until it is ground away so 
far that it runs quite out to the edge at A. 
In doing this take care. 

1. To hold the tool steady at the proper 
inclination. 

2. To keep plenty of water on the stone, 
so as not to heat the tool. Heat would 
soften and spoil it. 

3. To turn the stone towards the chisel, 
particularly near the end of the grinding. 
Turning it from the chisel will turn up a 
" wire-edge," as in Fig. 40. 

4. Never to let the stone touch the back 
of the tool. 

When the bevel A B, Fig. 34, has been 
carried out to the edge, which will make the 
latter rough, a moderate rubbing on the oil- 
stone will give it a smooth, keen edge. 

Having now pared one edge of your 
piece of wood straight and smooth, each of 
you may exchange pieces with his next 



96 Manual Training. 

neighbor, and repeat the operation on the 
opposite edge. This exchange is made for 
the purpose of giving you an opportunity 
to examine and become acquainted with 
the two kinds of wood that have been 
distributed through the class. The pine is 
of the kind called white-pine. It is soft 
and straight-grained, and planes to a smooth, 
glossy surface if the piece is a good one. 
The tree is a fine evergreen which grows 
to a height of one hundred to one hun- 
dred and fifty feet in the woods of the 
Northern States and Canada, and sometimes 
has a trunk six feet in diameter. Its leaves 
are long slender needles (Fig. 41), growing 







in groups of five, each group making, if 
the several parts are pressed together, a com- 
plete cylinder. You can find small speci- 
mens of the tree in woods and parks 



Wood - Working. 97 

almost everywhere, but the large ones are 
to be seen only in the wild Northern 
woods, and even there are getting scarce. 
It is very different in its mode of growth, 
the shape and grouping of its leaves, and 
the character of its wood from the yellow- 
pine and the pitch-pine, and yon onght to 
endeavor, as opportunity offers in the work- 
shop and elsewhere, to make yourself ac- 
quainted with these different species and 
their uses. The white-wood is the wood of 
the tulip-tree, which is also a large, hand- 
some tree, with fine straight trunk, and 
with curious, square-cut leaves, as in Fig. 
42. It is not an evergreen, but a decidu- 
ous tree; that is, it loses its leaves in the 
fall. It bears, in June, a coarse, tulip-shaped, 
yellow flower, from which it is named. 
Its wood, as you see, is not white, but 
greenish-yellow. It is very straight-grained, 
free from knots, soft and easily worked, 
and is much used in house-carpentry, and 
in furniture and pattern-making. 



98 



Manual Training. 




jriy^Z- 



Lesson XT. 

The Chisel Continued. 

WHEN greater force has to be applied to 
the chisel, as in paring across the grain, 
the handle is held in the closed right 
hand, the end of it standing out a little on 
the upper or thumb side, and the flat side of 
the chisel being turned towards the body. 
Leaning over the work and bringing the 
shoulder against the handle of the chisel, 
the tool is forced downward by the press- 
ure of the hand and the shoulder together. 
In this case, also, the oblique or sliding 
movement makes the tool cut easier. 

As an exercise in this method of using the 

chisel, one end of the piece used in the last 

exercise 27. exercise may be " chamfered " or 

champing " beveled " on the edge. The 

end-wood, work must be first marked 

out, as in Fig. 43 which shows elevation, 

plan, and end elevation of the piece. The 



100 Manual Gaining. 

line F E is to be drawn lightly, on one end, 
with the gauge, in the middle of the thick- 
ness of the piece ; D is to be drawn on one 
face, with lead-pencil and square, at the same 



D 



C 

B 



aC 



Fig* ^3 

distance from the corner that E F is; A B 
may be ruled with the lead-pencil and the 
edge of the square. The line A B, being on 
the top of the piece, is visible in the plan; 
C D, being on the back, is dotted on the 
elevation, and for a like reason, E is dotted 
in the right-hand end elevation. Holding the 
piece in the left-hand, by one end, rest the 
edge, at the other end, on a clean piece of 
wood, — not on the bench. The bench may 
have dust on it, which would dull the chisel; 
and besides, chiseling on the bench destroys 
the smooth surface that it ought always to 



Wood - Working. 101 



have. The piece should be held with the side 
that is to be beveled turned from you ; 
leaning over, you will then have a good view 
of the part you are cutting. Setting the edge 
of the chisel near the corner, as at a, Fig. 44, 
press it down 



and cut off a &' \ 



small chip. Fig. 4*4*. 

Then setting 

it back a little, as at b, cut off another, and 
so on. As the cuts become wider it will be 
harder to drive the chisel down, and you 
will have to take thinner shavings. Do not 
forget, particularly when making the last cuts, 
that it will work easier if, while 'pushing the 
chisel in the direction D C, you also slide it 
in the direction B A. The last cut should 
be a very light one, and made very carefully 
and with a keen chisel, so as to leave the 
surface quite plane and smooth. 

After chamfering one side of the end A, 
mark and chamfer the other side of the 
same end, working the end to a sharp edge. 
Then chamfer the other two edges of the 
same end, working it to a point. As the 



102 Manual Training. 

quantity of wood to be removed in this 
part of the exercise is less, the chisel will 
work easier, and the pressure of the shoulder 
will not be needed. You may hold the piece 
in your vise, the end that is to be beveled 
projecting only a little above the bench, so 
as to be firm, and the chisel being managed 
as in Exercise 25. Finally, make a drawing 
in plan, elevation, and end elevation of the 
finished piece, to a scale of J. 

3. In the exercise just finished, the cut was 
made obliquely across the grain. When it is 
made square across it is more 'difficult. In 
this case, and particularly when the piece to 
be cut off is so situated that the sliding move- 
ment cannot well be used, a mallet is used to 
drive the chisel. In this case the chisel is 
held in the left hand, nearly or quite per- 
pendicular to the surface of the wood, and 
with the same grip as in the last exercise, but 
not bearing against the shoulder. The ham- 
mer must not be used instead of the mallet, 
as this will deface the handle of the chisel, 
and after a while split it. When the position 
of the cut will allow it, some of the wood 



Wood - Working. 



103 



may be removed by the brace and bit, or 
a portion of the cut may be made with the 
saw, before beginning to use ExERC1SE 28 
the chisel. The next exercise, 
a " through-mortise 



Mortising. 



will illus- 
trate the first plan, and the following exer- 
cise, an " end dove-tail," the second. 

Figure 45 is a working sketch of one form 
of a "mortise and tenon" joint. A and B are 



1 
1 






1 
1 


I { 


c Jf-cm,^ 








t \ 


K 


jcm,.) 


1 


* ) 








1 


+ \ 






5* 


CL 


G 


1 


< jf-cm,} 


^ 








b 



<— 4. °1&- -> 



r a, 



J^iy 4-3 



D 



elevation and plan of the mortise and C and 
D of the tenon. No end elevations are 
needed. 

The dimensions are given in centimeters, 



104 Manual Training. 

that is, hundredths of a meter, that the eye 
may become accustomed to Metric measures 
as well as English measures. A centimeter 
is a little less than half an inch (0 in .39), 
a meter being a little more than a yard 
(39 inches, or 3.28 feet). An examination of 
the drawing will show that, when the two 
pieces E and F are cut out, the remaining 
piece, or " tenon," will, if properly cut, fit 
closely in the hole or mortise G, and the 
pieces will be firmly joined together perpen- 
dicular to each other. 

To make this* joint, the pieces must first 
be planed up exactly square and to the 
true dimensions. Sharpen the plane if neces- 
sary. First plane one surface of each piece 
true and mark it thus x. Next plane one 
adjacent surface on each piece true, and per- 
pendicular to the first surface, testing with 
the square. Next, mark the pieces to the 
proper breadth and thickness with the gauge, 
measuring from these finished surfaces, and 
plane to the marks. All four surfaces of each 
piece should now be of the proper dimensions, 
and the pieces square. Set the smoothing- 



Wood - Working. 105 



plane fine and finish the surfaces, taking 
off only enough wood to make the surfaces 
smooth. 

Now mark out the joint, drawing the 
lines a, b, c, d with the gauge, being care- 
ful not to mark them too deep nor to 
extend them too far, and draw the other 
lines with the square and a sharp lead-pen- 
cil. Both sides of the pieces must be 
marked, and also the end of the tenon- 
piece, C D. 

To cut out the wood from the mortise, 
first use the brace, with a center-bit three 
or four millimeters smaller than the width 
of the mortise ( a millimeter is a tenth 
of a centimeter, or a thousandth of a meter, 
and is the smallest division on your metric 
rule) . 

Notice the way in which the center-bit 
works. The revolving knife-point or " cut- 
ter " first makes a circular cut, exercise 29. 
and then the revolving chisel, Boring with 
following the knife, removes a center-bit.' 
chip. If the cutter is not sharp on the 
front edge it will not make a clean cut. 



106 Manual Training. 

If it is too short, the chisel will cut before 
the cutter has prepared the way for it, and 
will tear out the wood beyond the intended 
circle. Hence, though the cutter must be 
sharpened with a file when necessary, the 
sharpening must be done only on the inside 
edge, and very carefully, for if the outside 
edge is filed the circle cut will be too small, 
and if the cutter is made too short the bit 
is spoiled. 

With the center-bit a hole is to be bored 
through the piece near each end of the 
mortise. It is necessary that this hole 
should go through quite squarely, or it 
will cut away wood which ought not to be 
cut. A few experiments may be made first 
on the other end of the piece, or on a 
piece of waste wood. Mark a point near 






O 



the end, as at P, Fig. 46, and then with 
the gauge and square find the point exactly 



Wood - Working. 107 



opposite P. Hold the piece in the vise, 
the end P standing up above the bench. 
Place the handle of the brace against the 
breast, set the point of the bit on P, hold 
the bit perpendicular to the surface, and 
begin to bore without altering the position 
of the brace. No hard pressure on the 
brace will be needed, if the wood is soft, 
as pine or white-wood, and the bit in order. 
When you have bored about l cm , stand 
aside, holding the end of the brace in the 
hand without altering its position, and 
examine, both from above and from the 
side, whether it is perpendicular to the sur- 
face of the block. If it is not, make it 
so and go on. Examine again once or twice 
before boring through. As soon as the 
point of the bit begins to show, if it 
comes out at the marked point, or within 
one or two millimeters, you have bored 
pretty well and may venture to bore the 
holes for the mortise. As soon as the point 
makes its appearance reverse the block and 
bore from the other side, or clamp another 
piece tightly against your piece in the vise, 



108 Manual Training. 

and bore through against that. Unless you 
take one or the other of these precautions 
the bit will splinter the wood when it 
comes through. The first two holes having 
been bored, as in the Figure, a series of 
holes may be made between them, touching 
each other, and removing most of the wood 
from the mortise. 

The mortise is now to be trimmed to 
its exact size and shape with the chisel. 
To do this, lay the block on a piece of 
clean wood on the bench, set the chisel 
( which must be a little narrower than the 
mortise) upright on it about \ inch inside 
of the end mark, the flat side towards the 
mark, and drive it in by a smart stroke 
of the mallet. Pare away the wood at the 
sides of the mortise with a wide chisel ; 
drive the narrow chisel in again, and so on 
till the mortise is cut about half-way 
through. Then turn the piece over and 
cut in the same way from the other side. 
A little wood has been left, which is now 
to be very carefully pared off, holding the 
chisel against the shoulder as explained in 






Wood - Working. l o 9 



the previous lesson, and taking especial pains 
not to cut beyond the marks. This paring 
also should be continued half-way through 
from opposite sides in succession. The four 
sides of the mortise, if properly finished, 
will now be smooth, perpendicular to the 
faces, and parallel, in pairs, to each other. 

The tenon is to be cut with the ''back- 
saw." This is, as you have seen, finer than 
the cross-cut-saw heretofore used, and if skill- 
fully handled will leave the surfaces smooth 
enough without the use of the chisel. To avoid 
the risk, however, of cutting the tenon too 
small, it will be best, until you have acquired 
considerable skill, to saw not quite up to the 
marks, leaving a very small amount to be pared 
off with the chisel. 1 

If the mortise and tenon have been properly 
cut, they will now fit closely together. The 
tenon must not go in too tight. If it does, 
particularly sideways, it will split the mortise- 
piece. If it does not enter when driven with 

1 Some particulars in the management of this saw 
when cutting lengthwise of the grain are given in the 
next lesson (page 115), and may be noticed here. 



110 Manual Training. 

gentle blows of the mallet, it must be with- 
drawn. The bruises on the surfaces will show 
where it fits too tight, and either it or the mor- 
tise must be pared down carefully till a good 
fit is obtained. 






Lesson XVI. 



The Chisel Continued. — End Dove -Tail. 

THE two pieces that were, put together 
in your last lesson can be pulled apart 
in one direction. The piece A, Fig. 47, can 
be drawn out from B towards the right, but 
the part of B which 



B 



\ 



Fly. 4-7. 



projects above A in 
the figure prevents 
the tenon from be- 
ing removed by a 
pull upward, or in 
the direction of the 
arrow. If we wish- 
ed, however, to get 
rid of the projecting piece above the tenon, 
so as to have a smooth corner, we should 
lose this advantage, and unless the tenon were 
narrowed, A would not be able to resist either 
a force toward the right or an upward force, 
but would yield in either direction. If we 

in 



112 Manual Training. 



wish, in this case, to have A held fast so that 
there shall be one direction in which it can 
be pulled without being withdrawn, we must 
give the joint another shape. This shape is 
called the " dove-tail," from its resemblance 
to the spreading tail of a dove, Fig. 48. It 

is evident that if the 

A -> ; dove-tailed piece A is 

~" x^ /.o fitted into a hole of 

the same shape, it can- 
not be withdrawn by pulling in the direction 
of the arrow. With this explanation you 
will now be able to understand the sketches 
in Fig. 49, in which A and B represent the 
plan and elevation of the mortise-piece, G 
and D those of the tenon-piece, and E and 
F those of the two pieces put together. 

The two pieces are to be first carefully 
planed true and smooth as in the last 
exe rcise 30. exercise. The work is then to 
End dove-taii. be laid out. The thickness of 
A B ( 1 J" ) is to be marked with a sharp 
pencil on C D, first on the upper side 
shown at 0, then, by means of the square, 
on the front side I), and then, from these 



Wood -Working. 



113 



two sides, with the square, on the other 
two sides. In the same manner, the thick- 
ness of C D is to be marked, first on the 
right-hand face of A B, then on the front 



D 



) 



+ f>/£- 



A 


1 * 




• 



Tip. 4*9. 

face shown at B, and then from these on 
the other two. Next the two inclined lines 
marking out the dove-tail are to be drawn 
on the upper face of 0, then on the lower 
face, and then their ends are to be joined 
by lines drawn across the end of the 
piece. Lastly, similar inclined lines are to 
be drawn on the end of A, and from their 
extremities lines are to be drawn down the 
right and left faces of A B to the cross- 



114 Manual Training. 

mark. Mark with a cross x, as in Fig. 54, 
to prevent mistakes, the pieces of wood that 
are to be cut away, and before beginning to 
cut, put the pieces together and make sure 
that your marks are right. The lines are all 
to be drawn with a very sharp pencil, so 
that if you cut exactly up to the center 
of each line, but not beyond, the dove-tail or 
tenon and the hollow or mortise shall fit 
perfectly together. 

The cutting of the marked portions from 
the tenon-piece C is very simple. It is all 
done with the back-saw, and if the tool is 
handled with skill, nothing will remain for 
the chisel. To do this, however, would re- 
quire more skill than you can be expected 
to possess as yet, and you may therefore 
cut not quite up to the marks with the 
saw, leaving a little wood to ~be trimmed 
off with the chisel. Be very careful, when 
trimming this off, to have your chisel as 
keen as possible, and to use the sliding 
movement already described. 

In removing the wood from the mortise- 
piece also, the first part of the work is 



Wood - Working. 



115 



done with the saw. Hold the piece up- 
right in the vise, place the saw just within 
the inclined marks on the end of A, but 
very near them, and cut down to the cross- 
mark. In making these cuts on A, as well 
as the corresponding cuts on (7, and any 
others which go lengthwise of the grain, be 
careful not to hold the saw quite horizontally, 
or with the tip inclining downward, as in 
cross-cutting, but with the handle downward 
as in ripping, as in Fig. 50. Otherwise the 




Ftg.50 



teeth will stick too firmly in the wood, 
and the saw will jump, or " chatter." In 
making cross-cuts, as the two short cuts in 
C, this precaution is not necessary. 



116 



Manual Training. 



When the two saw-cuts in the mortise-piece 
have been made, the next operation is to 
cut out the piece of wood between them 
down to the cross-mark. Here, as in the 
last exercise, the work of cutting with the 
chisel may be lessened by the use of the 

brace and bit ; 
but we will, 
for the sake 
of variety in 
exercise, use 
a different 
method, cut- 
ting the mor- 
tise with the 
chisel alone. 
Lay the piece 
on the bench, 
with the dove-tail end from you and the right 
side (Fig. 49, B) up: this is the side on which 
the two cuts come nearest together (1£"). 
Set the edge of your one-inch chisel at the 
dotted line, Fig. 51, about \" inside of G H, 
the flat side of the chisel being towards you. 
Strike a smart blow with the mallet, driving 




Fiy.51 



Wood - Working. 117 



the chisel in about a quarter of an inch. Do 
not strike a series of feeble, uncurtain blows, 
but one vigorous one. You may, if you choose, 
after placing the chisel, give it one gentle tap 
to make sure of starting it right (though this 
is not necessary), but when you are sure that 
it is right, strike it boldly. Having driven the 
chisel in about a quarter of an inch, you 
have now compressed the wood so that it is 
difficult to penetrate any farther. Set the 
chisel about a quarter of an inch nearer to 
the end, but tipped forward, as at b in the 
Figure, so that it shall work towards the cut 
you have already made. It will thus throw out 
the little triangular chip shown in the Figure. 
Set the chisel upright again at the same 
point as at first, and drive it in farther. 
Move it nearer to the end, tipped forward 
again, and cut out another chip. Advance 
thus, till you have got half-way through the 
piece; then turn it over and proceed in the 
same way from the other side. Be careful 
not to let the chisel go through and strike 
the bench. If you cannot check it, place a 
piece of clean board under your work. As 



1 1 8 Ma ni i a I Tra in ing. 

the piece to be cut out is wider on the 
second face than on the first, you must in- 
cline your chisel right and left, so as to cut 
under a little while working from the first 
face and to avoid cutting into the sides of 
the mortise when working from the second. 

When the piece is cut out, the three sides 
of the mortise are to be carefully pared so 
that the tenon will go in, fitting closely, but 
not so tightly as to split the mortise-piece. 



Lesson XYTI. 

The Chisel Continued. — Dove-Tailing. 

WE will now return to the box which we 
left unfinished in our thirteenth Lesson. 
We had got out the required material, cut it to 
the proper shape, and put it away to dry 
thoroughly. Examine the pieces carefully for 
shrinking, warping, and winding, and if neces- 
sary reduce them to their proper shape and 
dimensions. If they have shrunk or twisted 
much, it may be necessary to make them 
somewhat smaller than originally proposed, 
sa y tV *&H" x 12^" for the long pieces, and 
iV' x5 ii" x W for tne snort P^ces; but it is 
to be hoped that this will not be necessary. 

The four pieces for the sides are now to be 
put together with dove-tail joints as in Fig. 52, 
which is a working drawing showing five dove- 
tailed tenons on each end of the long pieces A, 
which fit into five corresponding mortises in 
the ends of the short pieces B. The pieces 

119 






D 

» • 

• i 

• ■ 

□ 

• • 
i ■ 

• i 

O 

• ■ 

• • 

• i 

■ ■ 

□ 

• ■ 

• * 

□ 



s 




s i 



& 



)* I 



< 

B 



tZVt 9 - 



I 



B 



Saccle '/2 or* 6"= /' 



)*l 



f 



\I • (^ 



II 



% 

P 

■ : 
* i 

□ 

□ 



Tig* 5Z. 



which stand out between the mortises in B, and 
which might themselves be regarded as tenons 
fitting into mortises in A, are called " pins." 
The figures G and D show end-views of the 
pieces A and B respectively. The interrupted 
lines at A and B have the meaning already ex- 
plained on page 2. 

These drawings should be carefully studied 
till they are thoroughly understood. If they 
cannot be understood otherwise, you may 



121 



122 Manual Training. 

examine a finished box and compare them 
with it. After this the work is to be laid 
out in the following way : 

First, the lines a b are to be drawn with 
square and pencil on both sides of A 7 being 
careful, as before explained in similar cases, 
to work from one edge and one face of the 
piece. Then the lines c d are to be drawn on 
the pieces B. Next set out on a b the eleven 
distances, of which those numbered 1, 2, 3, 
4, 5 are equal, those numbered 6, 7, 8, 9 are 
also equal, and the two end spaces are half 
as long as 6 and 7. 

When these spaces have been laid out 
exactly, the oblique lines from a b to e f can 
be drawn with the " bevel," provided e f is 
quite straight and square. The bevel must be 
first set to the proper angle. Take a smooth 
piece of board five or six inches wide, with 
one straight edge and one smooth face. The 
piece that you have used in previous exercises 
to place under your work to protect your 
bench will do very well. Near one end draw 
a fine pencil-line across it with your square. 
Measure from this line an inch along the 



Wood - Working. 123 



edge of the board, and four inches along 
the line. Place your bevel with the handle 
against the edge of the board, set exercise si. 
the blade so that the edge of it La yin7out 
shall pass exactly through the two dove-taiis. 
points thus determined, and clamp it. With 
the bevel thus set, placing it against the end 
of the piece A, you can mark first all the 
lines which slope in one direction, and then, 
turning it over, all those that slope in the 
other direction. They will appear as in Fig. 
52 A. The dove-tails will be a little wider 
at the ends and will hold a little tighter, if 
the bevel is set with a slope of 3^- to 1, or 
even of 3 to 1, instead of 4 to 1. This, how- 
ever, will make the acute angles of the dove- 
tails and pins weaker, and if the wood is soft 
they may break off at the edges. The work 
is sometimes laid out with smaller pins and 
wider dove-tails, as in Fig. 53 A. This 
lessens the amount of work to be done, but 
leaves the pins rather weak. If both the 
pins and the dove-tails are widened, as in 
Fig. 53 B, the work has the appearanc of too 
much sparing of labor. You may lay out, on 



124 



Manual Training. 



the edges and ends of your piece of board 
sets of dove-tails with different angles and 



r-J" 



3 



L n. 



JB 



n. 



ttg- S3 . 

spaces, and compare them as to appearance 
and strength, and may select one for your 
work if you prefer to do so. 

Having marked out the dove-tails on one 
of the faces of A, set the piece upright in the 
vise, and from the ends of the oblique lines 



Wood - Working. 125 



draw fine lines with your square across the 
ends of the pieces. If the end is rough, you 
can make these lines clearer by first rubbing 
some chalk into the end-wood. After these 
lines are made, draw with the bevel, dove- 
tails on the other face, to correspond with 
those already drawn on the first. 

Next mark out the pin-pieces B. The 
drawing, Fig. 52 B, shows that side of B on 
which the pins are narrowest, which is the 
outside when the piece is in its place in the 
box. Lay the ends B on your bench with 
the other side, or inside, up, and lay out on 
c d the same distances that you have already 
marked on a b. Be very careful to have these 
distances exactly equal to those on a b. Ap- 
plying the s'quare to the end of B, draw lines 
through the points thus found, perpendicular 
to the end. Holding the piece upright in the 
vise, draw, with the bevel, lines on the end of 
B, corresponding exactly with those on the 
face of A, as in Fig. 52 D. Lastly, with 
the square, draw on the opposite face of B 
the lines perpendicular to the ends as in 52 B. 

When you have marked out all the pieces, 



126 



Manual Training. 






hold the end-piece B upright in the vise, 
the face B being turned towards you. Set A 
exercise 32. on B, the end IV turned from 
Dove-taiied y ou > and assure yourself, by care- 
box - ful inspection, that the lines on 

the one piece correspond exactly with those 
on the other, so that there shall be no mis- 
take when you begin to cut the pieces. In- 
spect the other corners in the same way. 
Mark the corners that are to go together, I, 
I ; II, II ; III, III ; IV, IV. Mark the parts 
that are to be cut out as in Fig. 54. This 



Fir?. <?*-. 



will prevent the mistake, very common with 
beginners, of cutting out the wrong pieces. 

With the fine back-saw, called " dove-tail 
saw," make all the cuts on the pin pieces, 
and then all the cuts on the dove-tail pieces, 
being careful in both cases to cut close up 



Wood - Working. 127 



to the mark, but not beyond it. If this is 
skillfully done the pieces will fit together 
without paring. Then, laying the pieces on 
a clean board on your bench, cut out the 
waste-pieces as in the last exercise. 

The points to be specially attended to are : 

Not to cut a wrong piece. 

Not to cut beyond the mark. 

Not to drive the chisel too far perpendicu- 
larly before making an oblique cut (Fig. 51) 

Not to cut quite through from one side, 
but to work from both alternately. 

Not to let the corners of the chisel cut 
into the sides of the pins. 

Not to drive the pieces violently together 
if they fit tight. 

When the pieces are put together, every 
joint should be perfectly close, the ends of 
each piece should come just even or " flush" 
with the surface of the next, and the box 
should be perfectly square at all its corners, 
perfectly free from winding, and exactly of 
the proposed dimensions. 

[The glue required for the next lesson should be partly 
prepared during this lesson.] 



Lessor XVTII. 

Gluing. 

A BOX properly dove-tailed together would 
preserve its shape without glue or any 
other joining material, unless subjected to con- 
siderable strain. To hold it in proper shape 
in spite of strains it must be fastened with 
glue ; and when properly glued it is impos- 
sible to get it apart without breaking, except 
by soaking it in water. 

To prepare glue, soak it over-night in 
enough cold water to cover it, and in the 
morning cook it gently for an hour or two 
in the inner bowl of the glue-pot, stirring it 
from time to time, and taking care that the 
water in the outer pot does not boil away 
and allow the glue to burn. When ready for 
use, the glue, if thoroughly hot, will flow 
from a stick or brush in a smooth thread, 
running off pretty freely, but not in drops. 
It is very important that it should be of 

128 



Wood - Working. 129 



just the right consistency. If too thin, it 
will soak into the wood without acting as a 
cement. If too thick, and especially if cold, 
it will make a jelly-like layer over the wood, 
preventing the pieces from coming in contact. 
It is not easy to describe the proper condition 
of the glue, but when you have seen it a 
few times you will have no difficulty in 
recognizing it. It may be remarked that the 
beginner is in general disposed to use it too 
thick rather than too thin ; at the same time 
it is unmistakably too thin, if it falls from 
the brush in drops with the sound of dripping 
water. 

After getting the glue of the proper consist- 
ency it is equally important to have it 
thoroughly hot when used. It is worse than 
useless to allow yourself to be led by impa- 
tience into using the glue before it is just 
right. Not only must the glue be hot, but 
the pieces to which it is to be applied must 
be heated till they are hot to the touch ; 
and the room in which the gluing is done 
must be warm and free from draughts. No 
open window must be allowed near work 



130 Manual Training. 

that is being glued (except in the case of 
veneering, when heat is supplied in another 
way). Lastly, the work of gluing must be 
done quickly, so that the wood and the glue 
shall have no time to chill, and as much of 
the glue as possible must be driven out from 
between the pieces by forcing them close 
together. 

Bearing these particulars in mind you may 
now proceed to glue your box together. First 
put it together without glue. Set two hand- 

exercise 33. screws to a width equal to the 
Setting width of the box. The proper 

hand-screws. wa y to open or close a hand- 
screw, when it requires much change, is to 
take one of the screw-handles in each hand, 
hold it with the open jaws towards your face, 
and then revolve one hand round the other, 
making the jaws turn quickly between your 
arms, and being careful of course that they do 
not hit your face as they turn. After a little 
practice this becomes very easy, even with 
rather large screws. After you have thus 
turned the screw to about the right width, 
place it, points downward, on the box, which 



Wood - Working. 



131 



is resting on the bench, move it along near 
to one end, but not so near as to rest on the 
dove-tails, and turn the front screw A, Fig. 55, 




till the jaws touch at the edge C D. Then turn 
the back screw B, till they take a firm hold 
at both edges. Considerable care is required in 
this operation, to avoid putting too much press- 



132 



Manual Training. 



ure on one part and too little on another. If 
you tighten the front screw A too much, the 
pressure on the back edge will be excessive 
when you come to screw up the hinder one. 
If you do not tighten it enough, the screw 
will bite at the point and not at the back. 
If you find your first attempt unsuccessful, 
you must always loosen the back screw before 
trying to readjust the front one. When the 
adjustment is right, the jaws should appear 
exactly parallel when the screws are well 
tightened, and should press equally on point 




scrrz} 



CTL 



\i 



mmma^^ 



FisCf 36 



sscin^ 



and heel. Either of the positions in Fig. 56 
is faulty, and tends to break some of the dove- 
tails, while leaving others open at the joints. 

Having set one screw at each end so that 
it shall press properly, closing all the joints 
and leaving the box in good shape, loosen 



Wood - Working. 13; 



the back screws a little and the front screws 
still less, only just enough to allow the 
hand-screws to be taken off easily, and lay 
them on the bench ready for use. See that 
the corners of the box are conspicuously 
numbered so that you can quickly place 
them together again in their proper order. 
Place them in front of a fire, or in an oven, 
or on top of a stove. If the last, they must, 
if the stove is very hot, be raised a little 
from the top on small pieces of wood, to 
prevent them from burning, and in either 
case should be turned from time to time. 
When they are well warmed, lay them one 
on top of another on your bench, in the 
order in which they are numbered, and, with 
the least possible loss of time apply the glue. 
This may be applied with a brush of suitable 
size, in the following way. First pass the 
brush crosswise over the wide sides of the 
pins, not letting the glue run over the ends 
or backs; enough glue will run in on the 
inclined faces of the pins, or a little may 
be rubbed in there with the end of the 
brush. Next pass the brush crosswise over the 



134 Manual Training. 

inside faces of the dove-tails, allowing a little 

to run inside, but none on the ends or the 

ir^„«,~ o„ out side faces. When the two 

Exercise 34. 

pieces are driven together, every 
surface of contact will have glue 
on it, and all the outside surfaces will be 
clean. Put them together quickly, driving 
them close with the mallet or hammer (strik- 
ing on a strip of wood so as not to bruise 
them), apply the hand-screws, and tighten 
them up as they were before. A good deal 
of glue will be forced out of the joints. 
This must not be allowed to dry on the 
wood, as it is very hard to get it off when 
it is dry. Scrape off most of it with a chisel, 
without scratching the wood, and wash off 
the rest with a piece of clean rag or a bunch 
of shavings wet with hot water. 

As success in this, as in all gluing opera- 
tions, depends greatly on quickness, it will be 
well, the first time, to rehearse all the move- 
ments with a dry brush without glue, and 
not apply the glue till you are sure you can 
perform all the movements rapidly and 
without confusion. 



Wood - Working. 135 



If the joints are good and the screws prop- 
erly applied, the box will preserve its shape. 
As there is always, however, some risk of dis- 
torting it, it is best to examine it carefully 
as soon as it is screwed up. The hand-screAvs 
will prevent you from applying a square,, out- 
side, and you will only be able to apply a 
small one inside, or to test the squareness by 
the eye, or by measuring the two diagonals, 
which ought to be equal. The winding may 
be tested by setting fhe box on your bench. 
Any error in squareness or winding must be 
corrected by loosening the screws, and apply- 
ing a suitable pressure at once, before the 
glue sets. After this the screws are to be 
carefully tightened again, and must not be 
disturbed for three or four hours, when the 
glue will be quite dry. 



Lesson XIX. 

Finishing a Dove-Tailed Box. 

THE box being glued together is now to 
have the bottom glued on, the top 
fastened on with hinges, and the surfaces all 
finished up true and smooth. 

To put on the bottom you must plane up 
the bottom edges square, smooth, and free 
from winding. Use the square and the 
smoothing-plane, and be very careful not to 
splinter the edges. There is much danger of 
doing this at the corners. The front and 
back overlap the ends, so that, while in 
running the plane along the edge of the front 
or back you will be planing lengthwise of 
the grain, at the beginning and end of the 
stroke you will run crosswise over the end- 
pieces, and will be very likely to splinter 
them at the edge. In the same way, in 
planing along the end-pieces you will be 
likely to splinter the front and back. The 

130 



Wood- Working. 137 



way to avoid this is, in the first place, to 
have the plane set fine, and in the next, to 
change the course of the plane at the corners, 
so as to work obliquely instead of going 
square across the grain of either piece. 

When you have planed the lower edges 
true you may glue the bottom on, taking the 
same precautions as in the last exercise as to 
the condition of the glue, the heating of the 
surfaces, the proper manner of applying the 
hand-screw, and the cleaning off of the glue 
that flows out. In cases like this, where it 
is not easy to get at the glue to clean it off, 
it may be prevented from sticking by rubbing 
the surface with soap or wax, being very 
careful to get none on the surfaces which are 
to be glued together. Moreover, as you can- 
not easily get at the inside of the box to 
finish it up after it is put together, all the 
surfaces must be made smooth and clean 
before it is glued. 

When the glue is dry you may finish the 
upper edges as you have already finished the 
lower ones, and make the box of the same 
height all round, if it is not exactly so 
already. 



138 Manual Training. 

Next, finish up the sides, using as before 
a sharp smoothing-plane. Hold the box in 
the vise, with one end up, and plane off' 
first the ends of the bottom. In doing this 
you are planing " end- wood," or cutting across 
the ends of the fibers, and must be very 
careful not to splinter the wood at the end 
of the stroke. To avoid this you must let 
exercise 35. the stroke extend only half- 
pianing wa y across the end, and when 

end-wood. y 0U have thus cut down one 
corner of the bottom nearly enough, turn 
the box round in the vise and plane the 
other corner, never letting your plane run 
clear out to the edge. Plane down the other 
end of the bottom in the same way. As 
this work is rather hard, you had better, if 
there is much more than about an eighth 
of an inch to take off, cut off most of it 
with the back-saw. After planing off the 
ends of the bottom, plane off the sides of the 
same. The reason for not planing the sides 
first is, that if you should, in spite of your 
care, splinter them a little while planing the 
ends, the defects thus caused could be planed 



Wood - Working. 139 



out. If there is much wood to be taken off 
here, use the jack-plane first, and finish with 
the smoothing-plane. Here also you must be 
careful to avoid splintering, not the bottom, 
but the pins of the end-pieces. Lastly, plane 
up the four sides with the smoothing-plane, 
working from the corners inwards, and never 
letting the plane run out. Test for square- 
ness, straightness, and winding as you work, 
and set the plane very sharp and fine for 
the finishing strokes. 

If there is any glue on the inside, it can 
be best removed with a chisel when it has 
got quite hard, provided you have soaped or 
waxed the surface so that it cannot stick. 



Lesson XX. 



Fitting Hinges. 



(s 



o 



YOU are now ready to put hinges on your 
box. Fig. 57 shows a plan and an end 
elevation of a hinge. When applied to the 
box the upper half of the hinge 
is to be sunk into the top, and 
the lower half into the edge of 
the back, and both are to be 
fastened on with screws. Lay the 
two hinges on the edge of the 
box where you intend to fasten 
them, as in Fig. 58, not at the 
ends, nor yet too near the middle. 
Mark the length of the hinges on 
the edge, and with the square 
draw fine pencil-lines across. Next mark on 
the edge the width the hinges are to occupy. 
This is not the full width of the hinges, but 
only the distance from the center of the pin 
to the edge of the hinge, because, when the 

140 



57., 



Wood - Working. 



141 



hinge is fastened on, it and the box should 
appear as in Fig. 59, the center of the pin 
falling exactly at the 
corners of the two 
pieces. With the 
gauge set to this 
width, mark the 
width of the hinge, 
making only a light 
scratch, and extend- 
ing it only the length 
of the hinge. Hold 
the top against the 




Fly.Jtf. 



back, as in Fig. 58, without the hinges, and 

transfer the four cross-marks to the top, 

and then, with the 



square, mark the 
length of the hinges, 
and with the gauge 
mark their width, 
just as on the edge. 
Next, mark the 
depth to which the hinges are to be sunk. 
In order that they may let the top close 
properly, they must be let in exactly half 






142 Manual Training. 

their thickness into each part of the box. 
If you place your gauge, therefore, against 
the face A B, Fig. 57, and set it so that the 
point reaches exactly to the middle of the 
pin, this will show how deep the hinge is to 
be let in. With the gauge thus set mark 
the back, and the edge of the top. 

All being properly marked out, lay the top 

on your bench, and cut out the pieces to 

exercise 36. make room for the hinges. This 

Fittin operation is exactly the same as 

hinges. that of cutting a mortise, except 

that the cut is a very shallow one, and 

you will have to be careful not to go too 

deep. 

Place the chisel near one end of the cut 
and drive it in, nearly to the depth marked. 
Make a series of similar cuts about ¥' apart 
along the length of the hinge. This breaks 
up the wood so that, holding the box in the 
vise, you can easily, by cutting across the 
grain, pare away the wood down to the mark. 
Then, laying the piece on the bench again, 
finish cutting away the little that has been 
left on the three sides of the spaces, till the 



Wood - Working. 143 



hinges exactly fit. Fit them into the top in 
the same way. 

Now put the hinges in place, without screws, 
lay the top on, and see whether they are let 
in deep enough. If not, carefully cut away 
enough wood to let them into their proper 
places. If you should happen to cut away 
too much (which you ought not to do) you 
must glue a piece of card-board or shaving 
under the hinge to bring it up. Also, open 
the top, put the hinges in place, as in Fig. 58, 
and see whether the back edge of the top 
just touches the edge of the back all along. 
If all these adjustments are correctly made, 
you may make a small hole with an awl 
exactly in the middle of each of the holes 
in the hinges, and put in the screws with 
your small screw-driver, being careful, before 
using any screw on the top, to assure yourself 
that it is not so long as to go through. 

With all the care you can take in putting 
on hinges, several faults are likely to occur. 

1. If the hinges are not let in deep enough 
the top will not shut close at the back. 

2. If they are let in too deep, the top will 



144 Manual Training. 

not close at the front, or, if it is forced shut, 
a strain will be thrown on the hinges, and the 
screws will be pulled out. 

3. If the space cut out is too narrow, the 
hinges will stand out too far, giving an ugly 
appearance, and leaving an unnecessary gap 
between the top and the back when the box 
is opened. 

4. If too wide a space is cut out, letting 
the hinges in beyond the center of the pin, 
the corner of the top will press against the 
corner of the back as soon as the top begins 
to rise, and opening the top will force off 
the hinges. 

5. If the width allowed for one hinge is 
greater than that allowed for the other, the 
top will not shut down square over the box, 
but will stand out, at the front, more on one 
side than on the other. 

The cause of any of these faults being 
understood, it is easy to apply the remedy. 
Taking out the screws, you must set the 
hinges deeper, or put something under them, 
or set one or both farther in or farther out. 
Either of the above changes will oblige you 



Wood - Working. 145 



to make new holes for the screws, so that 
they may push the hinges in the proper 
• direction. Before doing this, the old holes 
must be plugged up with small sticks whit- 
tled to the proper size and fastened in with 
glue. 

After the top is hinged at one edge, the 
other three edges are to be finished, the ends 
first and then the front, with the same pre- 
cautions that were used in finishing the 
bottom. 

A small brass hook-and-eye may be put 
on, to keep the box shut. This operation 
will need no explanation. 



Lesson XXI. 

Making a paneled Door. — Isometric 

Drawing. 

IN Lesson XIII you planed up the sides of 
your box and put them away; and when 
you took them out again you found that 
they had shrunk in width though not in 
length, and you measured the amount of 
the shrinkage. You found also that some 
of the pieces had checked, and some had 
warped. When large pieces of wood are used, 
shrinkage, warping, and checking give rise to 
serious trouble. Thus, in a door 30 inches 
wide shrinkage may amount to half an inch 
or more, and warping to an inch, and long 
and wide cracks are almost sure to appear. 
Moreover, the shrinking does not take place 
once for all, and then come to an end, but 
the wood having once shrunk may , swell 
again, and shrink again, and so on repeatedly. 
Doors that are exposed to the dry air of 

146 



Wood - Working. 



147 



houses which are heated in winter become 
very loose, but sometimes swell up in summer 
so much as to stick. The shrinkage will be 
less if the wood has been thoroughly seasoned, 
but the swelling in damp weather can hardly 
be prevented. 



never 



made 



m one 



Doors are therefore 
piece, but are always 
constructed of parts, 
so arranged as to 
reduce as much as 
possible the bad 
effects of these 
changes. There are 
two principal meth- 
ods of construction 
by which this is ac- 
complished. The first 
is the battened door 
and the second the 
paneled door. The 
battened door is made 
of strips, Fig. 60, 
running lengthwise of the door and held 
together by cross-strips or battens, fastened 



« e • • #~l 

: ■* : : 



F-Cg.60 



148 Manual Training. 

on with screws or nails. As the wood shrinks 
only in width and not in length, the shrinking 
of the strips will only cause the edges to 

separate a little, and 

. ** will produce scarcely 

""~" any change in the 

c==x==ir== rx==i==3 width of the door. 

.Fig. 61 The warping, also, in 

this case, will be 
small in amount. While a piece the whole 
width of the door might warp, as at a, Fig. 

61, a battened door would appear as at b. 
The separating of the strips, leaving cracks 
in the door, is prevented by using " matched " 
boards, or "tongue and groove" joints, as 
shown in the plan Fig. 60, or on a larger 
scale in Fig. 

62. In this ~ --j , 

case the £_ ^ _^ 

tongues slip Fvg.62. 

partly out 

of the grooves when the wood shrinks, 
but do not leave the joints open. This 
construction is simple and effective, and is 
much used where fine workmanship and 



Wood - Working. 



149 



handsome appearance are not important, 
as in the doors of barns and outhouses. 
For dwelling-houses and in cabinet-work the 
paneled door is used. This is a frame-work 
mortised to- 



gether 



< /5" - 



at the 
corners, and 
grooved all 
round on the 
inner edge to 
receive a thin 
piece called the 
panel,as shown 
in Fig. 63. The 
shrinking of 
the panel only 
causes it to 
slip in the 
groove. As the 
cross-pieces at 
the top and 
bottom under- 
go no change in length, the only altera- 
tion in width that the door will suffer is 
the slight one due to the shrinking in the 



r 




, 1 




.:::] 




t:::; 


A 


::: i 





& 



v--- 




150 Manual Training. 

width of the two upright pieces. We will 
proceed to make such a door from the 
figured sketch, in which A shows the eleva- 
tion, B the plan, and G a section on the 
line ah. 

The first step is to get out the material. 
This consists of the top and bottom pieces, 
called the rails, the upright sides, called 
stiles, and the thin central piece or panel. 
Take the dimensions of these from the 
drawing, and mark them out on boards of 
the proper thickness, being careful to allow 
for the saw-kerf and for the material which 
will be wasted in planing up the pieces to 
the true shape and dimensions. Furthermore, 
as the mortises will be very near the ends 
of the stiles, the latter may be cut li" 
longer than the door, so that they may 
project f" at each end, as in the Figure, 
and the tenon-pieces, or rails, may be made 
\" longer than the width of the door, so 
that the tenons may project ¥' beyond the 
stiles till all is finished, after which the 
projecting parts can be cut off. The rails, 
therefore, will be cut out 16" long and 
the stiles 21£" long. 



Wood - Working. 



151 



In laying out the frame, try, as in Lesson 
VIII. to avoid knots and cracks, and at the 
same time to waste as little wood as possible. 
The four pieces may be laid out in one 
way or another, according to the character 
of the wood from which they are to be 
cut. If the board were much checked at 
the end, as in Fig. 64, you should cut off 




just enough to remove the short cracks, and 
might then lay out the work so that the 
long cracks which remain should lie in 



a 




ap- 




















a. 











JFlj. 05. 

the waste-wood left at the ends of the short 
pieces. If there were a bad knot at a, Fig. 
65, this might be made to fall in the waste- 



152 Manual Training. 

wood between the rails and the stiles; and so 
on, according to the position and character 
of the defects. 

The frame-pieces being cut out, they are 
to be finished to exact dimensions and true 
surfaces as in previous lessons. The joints 
are then to be marked out with gauge, 
square, and pencil, making all gauge and 
square marks from the front surface and 
inner edge of the pieces, which must be 
marked to distinguish them. 

The laying out of the joint in this exer- 
cise is complicated by two circumstances. 
The first of these is that the tenon must 
be made of less width than the full width 
of the rail, in order that the mortise may 
not run out quite to the end of the stile. 
The second is, that a groove is to be cut 
in the inner edge of the four pieces, and 
this groove, unless a special arrangement is 
made to prevent it, will leave a hole be- 
tween the end of the stile and the shoulder 
of the mortise, as shown in the sketch of 
one joint at a, Fig. 66. To prevent this, 
a projecting stud, or tooth, is left on the 



Wood - Working. 



153 



tenon-piece, as shown in plan and elevation 
at a and b, Fig. 67. 

This construction, and the method of laying 
it out, may be better 
understood by the help 
of another kind of draw- ' 
ing called Isometric Pro- 
jection, the elements of 
which can be easily understood. 

The elevations and plans that we have 
hitherto used are projections on planes 



a 



•Fig- 



d 



Cb 




Tt 9 . e7. 



parallel to the 
front, bottom, 
and sides of 
the object; that 
is to say, they 
are views taken 
from a point 
at a great dis- 
tance in front 
of the object, 
above it, or to 
one side of it. 



The eye being at a very great distance from 
the object, if a plane be placed parallel to 



154 



Manual Training. 



the face of the object, the lines drawn from 
all points of the object to the eye are per- 
pendicular to the plane. If lines are thus 
drawn from all points on the edges and 
other lines of the object, they cut the plane 
in a number of lines which make up what 
is called the projection of the object. The 
elevations and plan already drawn are such 
projections, and are called 
right projections. If we take 
our point of view not exactly 
in front of the object, but a 
little to one side, or if, which 
is the same thing, we turn 
the object so that its front 
is not parallel to the plane 
of projection, the appearance 
of the object is changed, and 
the projection is called an 
oblique projection. The front 
of the object appears nar- 
rower, and the side, which was 
invisible before, comes into view. Suppose, 
for instance, the object were a cube, of which 
the plan is A, Fig. 68. Then, on the plane 





Fzq.6S. 



Wood - Working. 



155 



of projection, the front of it appears as a 
square, in the elevation B, and the side a is 
not seen at all in this elevation. But, if the 
cube be turned round to the position C, Fig. 
69, the front face will 
appear narrowed, or 
" foreshortened " to the 
width be, and the right- 
hand face will come into 
view and will have the 
apparent breadth c d. 
The elevation, therefore, 
will now present the 
appearance shown in D, 
Fig. 69, where b ef g 
represents one of the 
visible faces of the cube, 
c d hf another, and e d 
h i and b e i g the two 
invisible or rear faces. 
If we take the point of 

view still fort her to the right, or turn the 
object farther round, the front becomes ap- 
parently narrower, the right face wider, and 
the two appear presently of equal width. 




156 



Manual Training. 



This happens when the square C, Fig. 69, has 
been turned so that its diagonal is perpendic- 
ular to the plane of projection, as at E, Fig. 

70. The elevation then 
appears as at F, in 
which a b and c d rep- 
resent the faces of 
the cube, and appear 
of equal width. If, 
now, we take our point 
of view not only to 
the right of the object, 
but also higher, the 
vertical lines will be 
foreshortened also, the 
upper surface will come 
into view, and the cube 
will appear as in Fig. 

71. If the point of 
view be taken still 
higher, the edge P Q 

will be made to appear of the same length 
as P R and P S, Fig. 72. All dimensions 
which are parallel to either edge are then 
equally foreshortened, and the drawing is 




Tig<70 



Wood - Working. 



157 




Q 



called an isometric drawing or isometric pro- 
jection. The dotted lines in Fig. 72 show 
the edges of the cube that are concealed. 
The drawing of a cube 
on this system is thus 
seen to be extremely 
simple : that of a body 
with unequal dimen- 
sions is not difficult, 
provided its faces are 
perpendicular to each 
other. Thus, if it is 
required to represent a body of this shape 

whose length, breadth, 
and thickness are re- 
spectively 3", 2", and 
1", we have only to 
draw three lines P Q, 
P R, and P S, Fig. 73, 
making equal angles 
with each other, and 
to lay off on the one 
three units of length, 
on the second two equal units, and on the 
third one of the same units, and complete 




151 



Manual Training. 



the drawing as in the figure. The drawing 
of the three lines, or " axes " P Q, P R, 
and PS is easily accomplished, as in Fig. 74. 




tt? 73. q 

Draw a circle with any radius. From the 
highest point on the circumference lay off 
the radius six times, and through the alternate 
points draw the three axes. To secure accuracy 
the radius should be taken at least as long 
as the longest line in the drawing. 

It will be well, now, to make a few iso- 
metric drawings of simple objects, such as the 
box of Lesson XX., the through mortise of 
Lesson XV, and the end dove-tail of Lesson 
XVI., to accustom the eye to the " reading " of 



Wood - Working. 



159 



such drawings. It will be readily seen by 
those who understand ordinary perspective 
drawings, that 
isometric draw- 
ings differ from 
these only in 
giving the true 
dimensions of the 
remote as well 
as of those of 
the near parts, 
while perspective 
drawings make 
the parts that 
are farther away 
appear smaller, and therefore a scale cannot 
be applied to them. 




Ti,y. 74-. 



Lesson XXII. 

Paneled Door Continued. 

FIG. 75 is an isometric drawing of a part 
of one of the stiles of the door, showing 
the mortise and the groove, and Fig. 76 is a 





similar drawing of the end of the rail or tenon- 
piece, tnrned round. so that the shoulder A B 
is towards you, and the tenon C and the stud 
D are visible. From these drawings you will 

160 



Wood - Working. 



161 



be able to understand the way . of marking 
out this joint. 

As the tenons are to project half an inch 
beyond the stiles, and as these are 2£" wide, 




Tvy.7% 



a mark is to be made first, all around each 
rail 3" from the end, and a second mark 
10" from this, which will be 3" from the 
other end. These are the marks at A B, Fig. 
76, which show the shoulder of the tenon. 



162 Manual Training. 

They should be interrupted on the outer edge 

at the middle, as at D, so as to prevent the 

exercise 37. mistake of cutting across the 

The^^led Stud when y° u be g in t0 Saw- 
Door. Next the thickness of the tenon 
is to be marked with the gauge on the edges 
and ends of the rails as at E, always work- 
ing from the front face. Then the breadth of 
the tenon is to be marked by drawing, with the 
gauge, lines i" and 2" from the inner edge, 
being careful not to extend them beyond the 
cross lines at D and F. Lastly, the length 
of the stud D is to be marked with the 
square, and its breadth with the gauge. The 
marking will then appear as in Fig. 77. The 
marking out of the mortise is simpler, and 
is shown in Fig. 78. Light marks P Q may 
be made 3±" from the ends of the stiles, 
which will be 15" apart, and will indicate 
the positions of the inner edges of the rails, 
or the inside length of the frame. Marks R 
S 2¥' from these will indicate the outside 
length of the frame. These should both be 
drawn light, as no cutting is to be done on 
either of them. They may indeed be omitted, 



Wood - Working. 



163 



though they serve as a useful check to pre- 
vent mistakes in 
laying out the 
rest. Marks on 
the inner and 
outer edges, \" 
and 2" from P Q 
will show the 
length of the 
mortise; and 
gauge marks 
with the gauge 
set exactly as in 
drawing A B, 
Fig. 77, and meas- 
ured from the 
front face, will 
show the width 
of the mortise. 
The marking will 
appear as in Fig. 78, in which the dotted 
lines are on the rear faces. The groove for 
the panel is not shown in these figures. 
It appears in Fig. 75 ; and the method of 
marking it out and cutting it will be shown 
in the next Lesson. 




Tig. 7*. 



164 Manual Training. 

The marking being now finished, the cut- 
ting out proceeds as follows : With the back- 
saw cut first the lines A B y Fig. 77, then 
the lines C D and E F, observing that C D 
must not be cut so deep as E F } in order 
to leave the stud L B uninjured. Next 
make the cross-cuts G H, I J, I K, and / K, 
being careful not to cut too deep. The side 
pieces will then fall off, leaving the tenon 
complete, except the stud L B. The stud is 
still of the same thickness as the tenon, and 
must be pared down to the proper thickness 
with the chisel, by taking off I" from its 
back face, as shown in Fig. 77 and in Fig. 
67 a. The tenon, also, will need some paring, 
if you have not cut exactly to the marks 
with the saw ; but you must not in any case 
cut beyond the middle of the mark. 

The mortise may be cut with the center- 
bit and chisel in the same way as in Lesson 
XV., page 89, or with the chisel alone. The 
breadth of the mortise being small and its 
depth considerable, the bit will be apt to mar 
the sides of the cut, unless it is held exactly 
perpendicular to the face of the piece and 



Wood - Working. 



165 



kept very steady. For this reason, and for 
the sake of practicing the other method, we 
will cut out this mortise with the chisel 
alone. 

Lay the piece on your bench, with the 
edge up. To steady it, you may first lay a 




hand-screw on the bench, then set the piece 
in it and tighten the screw, as in Fig. 79. 
With alternate perpendicular and oblique 



166 Manual Training. 

cuts, as described on page 116, cut the mor- 
tise half-way through the piece. Then turn 
the piece over and cut in the same way 
from the other side. When the two cuts 
meet, the four surfaces are to be pared to 
the marks, using a wide chisel for the sides, 
and being careful not to cut away anywhere 
more than half the width of each mark. 
If the paring of both pieces has been prop- 
erly done, the tenon will fit closely in the 
mortise. If it fits so tightly that there is 
danger of splitting the mortise-piece, it must 
be carefully pared away a little more. The 
tenon cannot be driven quite " home," being 
stopped by the stud. Room will be made 
for this by cutting the groove, which is 
the next operation. 



Lesson XXIII. 

The Plow. — Fitting a Panel. 

THE tool used for this purpose is a 
kind of plane called a plow. Its mode 
of action will be understood after an examina- 
tion of the accompanying Figure and of 
the tool itself. 

The iron d, Fig. 80, cuts the groove. The 
"fence" b determines the distance of the 
groove from the face of the piece. It can 
be set at any distance from the iron by 
means of the screws c. The stop a, which 
can be raised or lowered by the screw e, 
regulates the depth of the cut. For this 
exercise it must be set at \" , and the fence 
must be set so that the groove shall be \" 
from the face of the frame. Before venturing 
to use the plow on your frame, you should 
try it on a waste-piece, and assure yourself 
that you can cut a smooth, clean groove at 
the proper distance from the face of the 

167 



168 Manual Training. 

frame and to the required depth. The plow 
has an assortment of irons, or "bits/' of 




tty. SO. 

different sizes for cutting grooves of different 
widths. For this exercise the f" iron will be 
exercise 38. used. Remember that the plow 
Grooving. i s to be placed against the front 
surface of each piece. If this precaution is 
neglected, the grooves in the several pieces will 
probably not match at the corners, and the 
panel cannot be got in. The grooves must 
not be planed beyond the depth indicated, 



Wood - Working. 169 



for if cut too deep they will weaken the 
pieces too much. The grooves being cut, the 
studs which have been left to fill them 
will go into their places, and all the joints 
should fit quite close. If too much wood 
has been left anywhere it may be carefully 
pared away; if too much has been cut off 
there is no remedy. 

To prepare the panel, first plane it to 
the proper thickness, and finish it with the 
smoothing-plane. Then plane two edges 
straight and perpendicular to each other, 
being careful, in planing the end, to avoid 
splintering, as directed in Lesson XIX., page 
138. Then cut the piece to the proper 
length and breadth, remembering that these 
are not the length and breadth of the in- 
side of the panel, but 1" more, on account 
of the depth of the groove. 

The panel is next to be fitted to the 
groove by chamfering. Mark the width of 
the chamfer (1") all round the face with a 
lead-pencil, or very lightly with the gauge, 
and the depth (^") on the edge in the same 
way. Lay the piece on the bench, its edge 



170 



Manual Training. 




ScaZe y /z. 



being just even with the edge of the bench, 
fasten it down with a hand-screw, and plane 
the chamfer carefully to the mark all round, 
exercise 39. again being careful to avoid 
Fitting a panel, splintering. If this is properly 
done, the panel will have a thickness of f " at 
a distance of half an inch from the edge, and 
will just fit in 
the groove as 
shown in Fig. 81. 
In this Figure, 
the shading, 
which has been 
introduced once 

before in Fig. 63, c, indicates a cross-section, 
fine ruled lines being generally used for 
metal, and somewhat coarser free-hand lines 
for wood. Do not drive the panel in if it 
fits tight, but ease it carefully till it enters 
freely without looseness. The flat side is to 
be turned towards the front of the frame. 

The frame of the door has been made 
thicker than it ought to be, in order to lessen 
the risk of splitting the stiles while making 
the mortises. It may now be taken apart and 



Ti 9 . M. 



Wood - Working. 171 



finished to a proper thickness. This is not 
the course that a skilled workman would take, 
nor that which you will follow hereafter in 
such cases. Setting your gauge at 1", make a 
mark on both edges of each piece at that 
distance from the front. Then, setting it at 
1 T V'> make a second mark at this distance 
from the front. Plane the faces exactly to 
these marks. The thickness of the frame will 
then be reduced to lyV'j an( ^ the g ro °ve will 
be \", from the front, and T 5 g" from the back, 
the latter distance being left larger because 
the chamfer brings the back surface of the 
panel nearer to the surface of the frame than 
the front, as shown in Fig. 81. 



LESSOR XXIV. 

Chamfering. — Sand-Paper. — Shellac. 

THE door may now be glued together and 
afterwards finished up with the smooth- 
ing-plane, or the front inner edges of the 
frame may be chamfered first. Fig. 82 shows 
how the chamfer is to be laid out. The line 
A B is drawn with a sharp pencil on the 
front of each piece, at a distance of T %" from 
the inner edge, and the line C D on this 
inner edge at the same distance from the front. 
The pencil is used in preference to the gauge, 
because, unless the latter is used very lightly 
and skillfully, its mark is apt to show on the 
finished work. 

The chamfer ma}^ be terminated at each 
end by a simple inclined cut, as at A and C, 
Fig. 82, or by an ogee, as at B and D. For 
the former, mark the point a f" from the 
inner corner of the frame, A and C one inch 
from 0, and corresponding points at the 

172 



Wood - Working. 



173 



other end of the piece. For the latter, mark 
a as before, and B and D 14" from 0. 




JFCy. 8Z. 

To cnt the chamfer. First with the bev- 
eled end. Hold the piece in your vice ; set 
the chisel near a, the flat side exercise 40. 



towards 0, and make an inclined chamfering a 
cut extending nearly down to frame, 
the ruled line, and throwing up a chip. 
Turning the chisel round, set it about \" be- 



174 Manual Training. 

yoncl A or C, and cut out the chip, leaving 
a notch. Cut again, with the chisel close to 
a, making as clean a cut as you can, and 
being very careful not to let the chisel go 
even a little beyond the ruled line A B, 
because, if it does so, a mark will be left 
on the chamfered surface which you cannot 
remove. Having made such a notch at 
each end of the chamfer, you may score the 
edge not quite down to the two marks, and 
pare it down, making a plane surface inclined 
to the face. You will find that it is not easy 
to make this surface perfectly true. The 
points to be attended to in order to secure 
good results are : 

1. To keep the chisel very sharp, and in 
particular, not to let it get in the least degree 
round on the back. 

2. To give it constantly the sliding move- 
ment which prevents it from following the 
grain of the wood. 

3. As you get nearly down to the required 
depth of the chamfer, to keep the back of 
the chisel lying quite flat on the surface, so 
that it shall act as a plane, removing all 
irregularities. 



Wood - Working. 175 



4. To take care, while cutting either the 
inclined end of the chamfer, or the long 
plane surface, to make no mark on the other 
surface, but to make the two surfaces meet 
in a perfectly sharp and smooth line, perpen- 
dicular to the edge. 

You see that it is impossible from the 
nature of the chamfer, to finish it up with 
the plane, and that it requires, therefore, ex- 
cellent work with the chisel. If the cham- 
fer is several feet long, the smoothing-plane 
can be used in the middle of it, but even 
then the ends have to be finished with the 
chisel. Fine sand-paper is sometimes used 
in finishing up such a surface, a exercise 41. 
piece of it being held on a block Sand-papering, 
of wood and rubbed to and fro, taking great 
care not to allow any rocking motion of the 
block, as this would give a rounded surface 
instead of a plane one, nor to leave the paper 
loose on the block, in which case it will 
wrap round the corner of the work and pro- 
duce the same result. Even with the utmost 
care that can be taken, the sand -paper is 
almost certain to take off the sharp corners 



176 Manual Training. 

that characterize good work, and should not 
be used, unless, as in this case, a very fine 
shaving can afterwards be taken off with 
the smoothing-plane from the adjacent face, 
to restore the sharpness of the edge. 

The ogee end of the chamfer is more difficult 
than the plane end. The curved surface to 
be formed is concave at a, Fig. 83, and convex 

at b. The part 
a should be cut 
first. The chisel 
is set with the 
handle towards 
the left in the 
Figure, and the 
bevel side towards the wood, a little to the left 
of a, and a small cut made. Then it is 
turned with the handle towards the right, 
the bevel still towards the wood, and the 
chip cut out. These operations are repeated, 
gradually widening the cut, till the hollow 
has the proper size. As the cut is most 
inclined at the beginning of the hollow and 
level at the bottom, the handle of the chisel 
must be depressed as you approach the bot- 




Wood - Working. 177 



torn, and care must be taken to prevent the 
tool from making a mark on the opposite 
side of the hollow. The convex surface b 
is cut with the back of the chisel towards 
the wood, as in cutting the plane surface, 
and is comparatively easy to form. The 
entire curved surface, like the plane sur- 
face of the chamfer, ought to be formed with 
the chisel alone. If you fail to get it 
smooth with the chisel, you may use a piece 
of very fine sand-paper (No. 0) in the fol- 
lowing way: Prepare a stick, J" x J" — 5". 
Cut one of the flat faces with your knife 
or your chisel, to such a curvature that 
it will nearly fit the hollow, touching at 
the bottom, but not at the sides. Glue 
a piece of sand-paper on this, and use it as 
a file to smooth the hollow. Even with 
this there is danger of your rounding the 
surface, and particularly of spoiling the sharp 
point of junction at c, between the ogee 
and the straight edge of your piece. You 
will do best, therefore, to endeavor to avoid 
the use of sand-paper in such cases as this, re- 
garding it as the resource of an unskillful 



178 Manual Training. 

workman. This, however, is not to be un- 
derstood as condemning the proper use of 
it On broad surfaces to give a smooth finish, 
when there are no corners that are likely 
to be injured by it. 

The chamfered edges being now finished, 
you may pass the smoothing-plane, set very 
fine, once over the inner edge of the pieces of 
the frame, and over the surfaces of the panel, 
before gluing them together. The other 
surfaces can be finished afterwards. 

The panel is not to be glued into its 
groove, but left free, so that it can shrink 
without splitting. It will even be best to 
rub some soap or wax on the corners, to 
prevent its being accidentally stuck by the 
glue which will squeeze out of the joints. 

If you have no hand-screws large enough 
to span the width of the frame, you may 
proceed, in this and similar cases, as follows : 
Provide two strips of board, A and B, Fig. 
84, three or four inches wide, and as long 
as the inside of your frame. Fasten them 
down on your bench parallel to each other 
with hand-screws, so that the door will lie 



Wood -Working. 



179 



between them, with about an inch to spare. 
Lay two pairs of wedges in the open space, 
as at c and d. By driving the inner wedges 
outward you can force the stiles exercise 42. 
up close against the shoulders of Gluillg tlp a 
the tenons. In putting the frame panel frame, 
together, insert first two tenons into one stile 



[ 



JFCy.S*-. 



d 



and drive them home; then put in the panel, 
and lastly put on the other stile and drive it 
up tight. Put no glue on the inner edge of 
the tenon, as whatever is put on here will be 



180 Manual Training. 

driven out into the grooves and will tend to 
fasten the panel. Test the frame for square- 
ness, and correct any error, before allowing 
the glue to set, by gentle strokes of the ham- 
mer on the proper corners, protecting the edge 
with a block of wood when you strike it. 

When all is dry, cut off the projecting ends 
with the back-saw, being careful not to cut 
too close, or you will deface the outer edge 
of the frame. Finish up with the smoothing- 
plane, observing the precautions indicated in 
Lesson XIX., page 138, to avoid splintering. 

The surfaces of the door may be finished 
with shellac varnish, which consists of white 
shellac dissolved in alcohol. This will pro- 
tect it in part from the effects of moisture, 
exercise 43. and will allow it to be cleaned 
Finishing with fr° m time to time. Sand-paper 
shellac. all broad surfaces and wipe them 
clear of dust with a clean rag. Then, in 
a warm room, free from dust, apply with a 
flat brush, one coat of varnish, and let it 
dry. Do not pass the brush over the varnish 
oftener than is necessary to spread it smooth. 
Passing the brush over it when it is begin- 



Wood - Working. 181 



ing to "set," or dry, breaks up the smooth 
surface that it would form if left to itself. 
Do not put on too much at a time; it will 
flow down the sides and form "runs," which 
it is hard to remove. When the first coat is 
thoroughly dry, which should be in a quarter 
of an hour, it may be rubbed down with 
fine sand-paper, on a block, taking great care 
to do no injury to the corners, and a second 
coat applied. 

If you have determined in advance to 
finish the work with shellac, it will be best 
to finish the panel and the inner edges of 
the frame before gluing. In .this case, how- 
ever, you must be careful to clean off with 
warm water any glue that may get on the 
finished surfaces, before it hardens, as, after 
it is hard it will take off the varnish with 
it. All the other surfaces should be finished 
after gluing. 



ALPHABETICAL INDEX. 



PAGE 

Accidents with tools, prevention of . . . . 3 
Ax ; See Hatchet 

Awl 143 

Back-saw, use of in cross-cutting and ripping . .115 

Battened door 147 

Bench-dog 79 

Bench-hook 63 

Bevel 123 

Boring 105 

Box, nailing together 52 

Box, dove-tailed 119 

Brace 105 

Brad-awl 143 

Broken lines in drawings, meaning of ... 2 

Cap of plane 60 

Center-bit . . . .' .' . . . . 105 

Chamfering . . . ' . . .' 101, 169, 172 
Checks ; See Cracking 

Chisel, form of 85 

" grinding . 94 

" paring with ....... 88 

183 



184 



Manual Training. 





PAGE 


Chisel, manner of holding 


87, 88, 92, 95 


" sliding movement of 


. 90 


" sharpening 


92 


Cracking of timber 


29, 31 


Cross-cutting with hatchet 


6 


" " " knife .... 


2 


"saw 


23 


Door, battened 


. 147 


" paneled 


149 


" prevention of effect of shrinkage 


. 146 


Dove-tail, end 


111 


Dove-tailed box 




Dove-tailing, points to be attended to in 


127 


Dowels 


. 28 


Drawings, scale of; working . . 


38 


" details 


34, 41 


" isometric projection 


153 


• " meaning of broken lines 


2 


" working sketches . 


36 


" sections . . . ' . 




" shading to indicate sections . 


170 


End-wood, planing 




Fibers of wood . . . . 


15 


Gauge, use of . . . . . 


. 74 


Glue, cleaning off . 


134, 135 


" preparation of 




" to prevent from sticking 


137 


Gluing 




Gluing ; warming the work for 


133 



Index. 



185 







PAGE 


Grain of wood, working against the . 




66 


Grinding chisels and planes .... 


• 


95 


Hammer, striking with 




49 


Hand-screws, adjustment and use of 


130, 


132 


Hatchet or ax, cross-cutting with 




6 


" " hewing with .... 




13 


" " splitting with . 




8 


Hewing with hatchet 




13 


Hinges, fitting of 




140 


" points to be attended to in 




143 


Hook and screw-eye for box . 




145 


Isometric drawing 




153 


Knife, cross-cutting with 




1 


'• splitting with 




7 


" whittling or paring with . 




11 


Laying out dove-tails 




123 


" " end dove-tails .... 




112 


" " mortise and tenon 




105 


" " paneled door .... 




162 


" " work ; avoiding knots and cracks 


. 48 


151 


Mallet 




102 


Marking with square 




24 


" " gauge 




74 


Materials required 


• 


vii 


Metric measures 




104 


Mortise-cutting with center-bit 


. 


106 


" " without center-bit 


. 116 


164 


" and tenon 


103 


, 160 


Nailed box 




52 



186 



Manual Training. 



Nails, drawing .... 

" form of 

Nails, four-penny, etc. 

" right and wrong driving of 
Ogee end of chamfer 

Oil-stone 

Paneled door 

Paneled door, chamfering the frame of 
" " " panel of 

" cutting mortises and tenons for 

" finishing up 

" gluing . . 

" grooving for 

" laying out 

Paring with chisel across the grain 
" " " with the grain 
" knife . 



Pine-wood 

Plane, fore 

" jack 



" manner of holding 
" mode of action of 
" principal points in using 
" smoothing 

Planing an edge 

Planing end-wood 
" to thickness 

Plane-irons 

Plane-iron, adjustment of 



Index. 



187 



PAGE 

. 167 

175, 177 

78, 115 

21 



79 



Plow 

Sand-paper .... 

Saw, back 

Saw, cross-cut .... 

" dove-tail .... 
Saw-kerf, allowance for . 
Saw, rip 

" tenon .... 
Scale of drawings 
Scoring with knife or hatchet 
Screw-driver .... 
Sharpening tools 

Shellac varnish . . . . . 
Shrinkage and warping, effect of, on doors 

Shrinkage of wood 

Sliding movements of cutting tools 
Splitting with hatchet . 

" knife .... 

Square 

Standard edge or surface 

Straight-edge 

Testing-machine 

Timber ; See Wood 

Tools required, list of vii 

Warping of wood 30 

White-wood 69 

Whittling ; See Paring 

Winding 55 

Winding, removal of 71 



, 126 

45 

83 

78 

, 38 

11 

, 143 

92 

■ 180 

146 

28 

4 

8 

7 

, 24 

45,72 

55 

18 



188 Manual Training. 

PAGE 

Winding-sticks 55 

Wood, fibers of 15 

" shrinking, cracking and warping of . . 29, 30 

" strength of 18 

Wood, structure of 15, 16 

Working drawings 38 

" sketches 36 



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